THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 


By 
John  A.  Zangerle 


CLEVELAND 
PRIVATELY  PRINTED 

1906 


COPYRIGHT,  1906 

BY 

JOHN  A.  ZANGERLE 


In  grateful  acknowledgment  of  her  able 
assistance,  and  in  memory  of  the  many  hours 
with  her  spent  in  the  English  Garden  in 
Munich,  Germany,  in  the  examination  of  this 
work,  I  hereby  cheerfully  and  publicly  credit 
it  to  the  real  prompter  and  publisher,  my 
sister,  IDA. 


1087S15 


PREFACE 

The  author  presents  herein  a  few  reflections  on 
the  political,  social,  ethical,  economic,  and  religious 
questions  of  the  day,  growing  out  of  the  steady 
concentration  of  vast  amounts  of  wealth  in  single 
hands;  not,  however,  with  any  purpose  of  present- 
ing a  general  panacea  for  the  many  ills  of  modern 
society,  but  with  the  view  of  showing  their  greater 
relationship,  and  with  the  further  object  of  stim- 
ulating thought  in  this  field.  Even  a  superficial 
discussion  of  these  questions,  being  necessarily  so 
involved  with  conditions,  limitations,  and  explana- 
tions, and  their  usual  treatment  being  so  dry  and 
uninteresting  as  to  dampen  the  ardor  of  the  ordin- 
ary reader,  the  author  has  adopted  this  arrange- 
ment as  inviting  deeper  interest  and  lending 
greater  attraction.  The  employment  of  such  men 
as  Mr.  Minister,  Mr.  Tramp,  Mr.  Banker,  Mr. 
Landlord,  etc.,  as  mouthpieces  in  a  jury  room  has 
also  allowed  a  greater  freedom  of  expression  and 
permitted  a  wider  latitude  for  the  presentation  of 
the  view  points  of  different  members  of  society. 
Each  of  them  expresses  part  of  the  truth.     Dog- 


6  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

matism  breathing  but  a  single  idea  has  little  attrac- 
tion for  a  thorough  reader  and  broad  thinker. 
To  see  the  centre  of  a  circle  we  must  stand  at  each 
point  of  its  perimeter.  Only  a  wide  consideration 
of  the  manifold  relations  of  things  permits  a  uni- 
versal judgment. 

No  particular  malignment  or  villification  of  John 
D.  Rockfeller  is  herein  intended;  he  is  as  ably  de- 
fended as  he  is  vehemently  attacked  by  the  various 
speakers.  The  use  of  his  name  is  merely  as  a 
representative  of  the  large  class  of  our  so-called 
"captains  of  industry." 

In  the  speech  of  Mr.  Philosopher,  the  writer 
has,  in  brief  form,  attempted  a  criticism  of  the 
respective  speeches.  The  weakness  of  each 
speaker's  ideal  is  generally  demonstrated  by  carry- 
ing it  to  its  extreme  logical  conclusion;  and  to 
confine  the  work  within  reasonable  and  readable 
limits,  and  to  avoid  involving  and  confusing  the 
main  issues,  the  latter  speaker  treats  only  the  more 
essential  issues  presented  by  the  many  conflicting 
arguments  of  the  dogmatic  pleaders. 

This  comparative  treatment  of  social  questions 
seems  to  some  to  be  abortive  of  purpose  and  aim; 
they  say  that  it  serves  to  destroy  our  ideals,  that  its 
tendency  is  to  trace  a  vice  in  every  virtue,  to  cause 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  7 

the  reader  to  become  a  thinker  rather  than  an 
advocate,  and  thus  to  minimize  his  importance  and 
influence  in  society.  Such  argument  idealizes  the 
rankest  ignorance;  and  surely  whatever  destroys 
one  ideal  must  create  another:  man's  mental  vision 
is  broadened,  his  horizon  widened,  and  his  sym- 
pathy for  suffering  mankind  deepened.  The 
writer  hopes  hereby  to  be  of  some  service  in  pro- 
moting the  latter. 


To  avoid,  in  reading,  any  interruption  of  the 
speakers,  the  author  does  not  appropriately  cite 
the  sources  of  his  information.  The  World's 
Almanac,  the  Daily  Mail  Year  Book,  The  Statis- 
tical Year  Book  of  the  German  Empire,  and 
Kiirschner's  Jahrbuch  have  generally  supplied  the 
statistical  information.  On  questions  of  social 
reform  he  is  largely  indebted  to  Bliss's  Encyclo- 
paedia of  Social  Reform,  published  by  Funk  and 
Wagnalls  (1897)  from  which  he  has  frequently 
quoted.  Other  works  used  are  Clark's  Ten  Great- 
est Religions,  The  Common  Features  Which 
Appear  in  all  Forms  of  Religious  Belief,  by  R. 
N.  Cust,  Democracy  and  Reaction  by  L.  T.  Hob- 
house,  Barnes'  General  History,  Paulson's  System 
of  Ethics,  and  The  United  States  Census. 


^'In  proportion  as  we  love  truth  more  and  victory 
less,  we  shall  become  anxious  to  know  what  it  is 
which  leads  our  opponents  to  think  as  they  do. 
We  shall  begin  to  suspect  that  the  pertinacity  of 
belief  exhibited  by  them  must  result  from  a  percep- 
tion of  something  we  have  not  perceived.  And 
we  shall  aim  to  supplement  the  portion  of  truth, 
we  have  formed,  with  the  portion  formed  by  them." 

— Herbert  Spencer,  ''First  Principles." 

^^Shall  I  tell  you  the  secret  of  the  true  scholar? 
It  is  this:  Every  man  I  meet  is  my  master  in  some 
point,  and  in  that  I  learn  of  him." — EmeRSON. 


IN    THE    COURT    OF    ETHICS 

STATE    OF    REASON 

COUNTY    OF    COMMON    SENSE 


The  State 

vs. 
John  D.  Rockefeller 


Record. 


Be  it  remembered  that  at  the  Indignant  term  of 
the  above  court,  on  the  affidavit  of  Mr.  Small 
Dealer,  John  D.  Rockefeller  was  arrested  on  the 
charge,  ist,  of  assault  and  battery  on  the  person 
and  property  of  the  said  Mr.  Small  Dealer,  to- 
gether with  150,000  sundry  other  persons,  and  2nd, 
of  continuing  to  amass  a  fortune  in  a  menacing 
manner  against  the  peace  and  good  order  of  society, 
and  contrary  to  the  forms  and  ordinances  made  and 
provided  for  the  Health  and  Growth  of  the  Com- 
munity. The  said  defendant,  demanding  a  jury, 
the  following  honourable  gentlemen,  with  name 


12 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 


and  residence  were,  in  the  usual  manner,  selected, 
impanelled,  and  sworn,  to-wit: 


NAME 

STREET 

CITY 

STATE 

Mr. 

Banker 

Deposits 

Combinations 

Monarchy 

Mr. 

Tramp 

E.  Z. 

Rest 

Contentment 

Mr. 

Retailer 

Independence 

Republic 

Health 

Mr. 

Laborer 

Ascent 

Work 

Union 

Mr. 

Republican 

Vanity 

Pride 

Patriotism 

Mr. 

Artist 

Fancy 

Sentiment 

Passion 

Mr. 

Democrat 

Freedom 

Individuality 

Competition 

Mr. 

Socialist 

Brotherhood 

Equality 

Centralization 

Mr. 

Landlord 

Parasite 

Titles 

Privilege 

Mr. 

Farmer 

Indifference 

Good  Nature 

Sunshine 

Mr. 

Minister 

Love 

Submission 

Denial 

Mr. 

Philosopher 

Prudence 

Reason 

Doubt 

The  state  offered  various  witnesses  to  prove  the 
issues  on  its  part.  The  defendant  offering  no 
testimony  on  his  part,  the  prosecutor  moved  that 
the  defendant  be  fined  for  contempt  of  court,  and 
that  the  fine  be  his  permanent  retirement  from 
business  activity.  The  court  overruled  the  motion, 
but  submitted  the  question  to  the  jury.  Tihe  jury 
thereupon  retired,  selected  Mr.  Philosopher  as 
Foreman  and  Mr.  Artist  as  Clerk.  It  was  voted 
that  each  speaker  Ihave  ten  minutes  except  the 
Chairman  who  should  be  unlimited  in  time.  The 
following  is  a  record  of  the  speeches  in  the  jury 
room  thereupon  delivered,  their  order  having  been 
fixed  by  lot: 


"There  is  no  lock  but  a  golden 
key  will  open." — Spanish  Proverb 

BANKER 


Mr.  Chairman : — 

We  are  asked  to  pass  on  the  question  of  retiring 
Rockefeller.  Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  most  decid- 
edly opposed  to  any  such  action.  What  heinous 
offense  has  he  committed?  What  crime  has  he 
perpetrated?  This  —  and  only  this:  By  earnest 
endeavor,  hard  toil,  and  patient  labor  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  amassing  a  fortune,  the  greatest  and 
grandest  ever  recorded  in  past  or  present  time. 

Since  when  has  that  become  a  misdemeanor? 
When  in  the  annals  of  history  has  this  not  consti- 
tuted the  ideal  of  man  and  society?  Which  people, 
if  not  the  American,  typifies  most  grandly  this 
aim?  Where  is  it  more  successfully  realized  than 
in  our  own  land?  What  else  does  civilization 
really  mean,  if  not  the  acquisition  of  power  through 


14  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  accumulation  of  wealth?  All  over  the  globe, 
from  Alaska  to  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  from 
San  Francisco  around  again  to  San  Francisco, 
mankind  seeks  the  same  end  —  power  through 
wealth.  Rich  and  poor,  educated  and  ignorant-, 
civilized  and  uncivilized,  Oriental  and  Occidental, 
individually  and  nationally,  both  by  word  and  by 
action,  demonstrate  in  no  uncertain  manner  the 
unanimity  of  opinion  that  wealth  is  power.  And 
power  every  person  seeks,  whether  it  be  through 
fame  or  health  or  wealth. 

This  ideal  incites  us  to  labor;  it  instigates  us  to 
action;  it  prompts  our  energies;  it  fixes  our  atten- 
tion; it  is  the  Elixir  of  Life  that  renders  us  earnest 
in  effort  and  steadfast  in  purpose.  It  lifts  our 
thoughts  and  considerations  from  self  to  larger 
fields  and  wider  circles.  Time  spent,  under  old 
conditions,  in  self-engrossment  and  with  personal 
ills  is,  under  new  conditions,  enlisted  in  the  better- 
ment of  society  —  spite  and  revenge  give  w^ay  to 
generosity  and  love. 

Never  has  there  been  a  time  when  man  reposed 
as  much  confidence  in  his  fellow-man  as  today. 
Through  the  universal  elective  franchise  the  prop- 
erty of  the  rich  is  absolutely  within  the  power  and 
control  of  the  masses.     It  is  the  corner-stone  of  our 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  15 

stock  companies — never  before  has  man  trusted 
his  fellow-man  in  the  management  and  control  of 
his  property,  as  millions  of  shareholders  in  stock 
companies  do  today.  Not  since  time  began  were 
there  as  many  I.  O.  U.'s,  promissory  notes,  bills  of 
exchange  in  circulation.  Men  reputed  to  be 
wealthy  are  but  rich  in  the  promises  of  others. 
Modern  business  is  conducted  on  debit  and  credit, 
on  mutual  "trust,"  and  reciprocal  confidences. 
Whatever  extends  that,  extends  commerce  and 
^industry;  whatever  curtails  it,  blights  all  human 
activity — restores  us  to  mediaeval  days,  the 
wooden  plough,  the  hickory  flail,  the  hand-scythe. 
This  universal  gain-ideal  has  also  been  the 
motive  power  of  Rockefeller's  great  energies.  He 
has  been  but  realizing  most  successfully  the  aim 
for  which  his  traducers  are  most  vainly  groping. 
His  colossal  fortune  is  real,  true  capital.  It  is 
not  burdened  by  the  ordinary  household  or  personal 
necessities,  and  hence  becomes  true  working  capital 
enlisted  in  electrifying  the  otherwise  stagnant 
energies  of  thousands  of  willing  hands.  The  more 
capital  there  is  in  America,  the  cheaper  we  can 
manufacture  —  the  more  we  can  send  abroad,  the 
more  labor  will  be  employed.  When  we  require 
all  of  our  labor  and  capital  to  satisfy  our  immediate 


i6  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

wants,  capital  can  not  be  sufficiently  accumulated 
for  successful  competition  with  the  giant  forces  of 
other  progressive  countries.  An  appreciation  of 
this  fact  by  a  wise  and  alert  people  has  encouraged 
the  greatest  consolidations  of  capital  that  have  ever 
existed  either  in  this  or  any  other  country.  We  have 
one  corporation — I  refer  to  the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation  —  which  has  a  greater  capital  stock 
than  the  combined  capital  stock  of  the  fifty  biggest 
corporations  in  England.  How  majestic!  Think 
of  that!  How  proud  we  should  feel!  Think  of 
the  number  of  people  employed,  the  dinner  pails 
filled,  the  joys  and  pleasures  provided  for  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  workmen  and  their  families,  who 
otherwise  might  be  destitute  and  in  want. 

Our  big  corporations  are  missions  of  mercy  and 
works  of  charity.  They  are  the  churches  of  the  mid- 
dle ages;  they  have  usurped  their  functions.  In- 
deed they  provide  the  poor  and  the  needy  not  only 
with  the  necessities  of  life,  but  even  with  its  luxur- 
ies. In  the  coming  history  of  present  conditions 
our  big  corporations  will  be  accorded  the  front  rank 
among  the  charitable  institutions  of  the  day.  What 
these  institutions  have  done  for  the  great  masses  of 
our  people  is  best  indicated  by  a  consideration  of 
our  enormous  wealth  and  its  great  distribution. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  17 

The  United  States  leads  all  the  other  nations 
with  total  deposits  in  savings  banks  of  $3,060,000,- 
000,  being  about  one-third  of  the  world's  aggregate, 
namely,  $10,500,000,000.  Our  deposits  exceed  the 
aggregate  of  France,  England,  and  Austria-Hun- 
gary. The  amount  of  our  national  public  debt  is 
about  $2,304,000,000;  the  bonded  debt  of  the  states, 
counties,  and  municipalities  about  $1,000,000,000 
—  all  being  for  the  most  part,  probably  95*^",  held 
and  owned  by  true  loyal  American  citizens.  The 
capital  stock  of  American  railways,  which  is  almost 
entirely  missing  in  some  European  countries,  as  in 
Germany,  in  the  year  1903  was  about  $6,355,000,- 
000;  their  issued  bonds  in  the  same  year  amounted 
to  about  $6,722,000,000.  The  capital  stock  of  the 
American  (Bell)  Telephone  Company,  namely, 
$154,000,000,  should  be  added  to  this  grand  show- 
ing. Here,  then,  are  about  $2 y ,^00,000,000  of 
capital.  Think  of  it!  $2^,^00,000,000  of  wealth/ 
Almost  $2,000  for  the  head  of  every  family  in  the 
United  States!  Match  these  figures  if  you  can. 
Nowhere  in  the  world  can  such  prosperous  condi- 
tions be  shown.  Not  even  in  thrifty  Germany  is 
the  family  one-half  as  rich.  This  average  family 
wealth  of  $2,000  at  6*^°  would  produce  an  income  of 
over  $120  per  annum.     Why!     Three-fourths  of 


1 8  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  European  laborers  don't  earn  as  much  as  that. 
Yet  here  we  have  a  guaranty  for  each  family 
against  starvation  or  need. 

This  splendid  capitalization  —  what  w^ould  our 
retired  people  do  without  it?  What  would  the 
American  banker  do  if  nation,  state,  and  munici- 
pality should  pay  ofif  their  debts  —  as  some  states 
already  have  done,  and  as  some  misguided  agitators 
continually  urge? 

But  some  of  you  will  say  that  this  marvelous 
wealth  is  not  equally  divided.  Yes,  that's  so ;  and 
furthermore  we  don't  want  it  equally  divided.  This 
talk  about  an  equality  of  wealth  and  opportunity, 
about  equal  conditions  and  equal  rights,  etc.,  that 
we  hear  so  much  about  nowadays,  is  all  rubbish. 
In  the  race  for  the  world's  markets  we  would 
scarcely  come  under  the  distance  flag  with  such 
conditions. 

The  story  of  our  age  is  concentration  and  con- 
solidation—  we  can't  avoid  it.  It  is  a  natural 
process,  going  on  not  only  in  the  economical  world, 
but  also  in  the  political.  Ireland,  Finland,  Poland 
w^ere,  but  a  short  time  ago,  sovereign,  independent 
states.  In  Germany  about  40  German  states  formed 
an  empire  in  1870;  Austria  become  associated  with 
Hungary  in  1867;  United  Italy  is  a  nobleman  of 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  19 

but  35  years;  the  many  South  American  Republics, 
as  well  as  Mexico,  and  the  Central  American  Con- 
federations, are  imperialistic  forces  arising  out  of 
anarchistic  conflict.  The  loose  Confederation  of 
America  gave  way  to  the  inseparable,  imperialistic, 
and  centralized  Union.  Everywhere  nature  seems 
to  be  growing  the  same  plant,  concentration  and 
bigness,  industrially  and  politically.  It  is  not  in 
our  power  to  alter  her  imperious  reign,  were  we  so 
inclined.  Even  in  the  religious  world  the  soil  is 
not  unfertile  for  its  growth.  And  within  twenty- 
five  years,  I  predict,  half  of  the  denominations  will 
have  merged  their  existence  and  lost  their  identity. 

This  American  policy  of  encouraging  large 
accumulations  of  capital  draws  thousands  annually 
from  European  shores,  who  by  their  healthy  appe- 
tites and  housing  requirements  add  immeasurable 
wealth  to  American  property  owners.  Every 
immigrant  is  worth  at  least  $1,000  to  our  land 
owners.  The  amount  of  land  remains  stationary 
while  the  number  of  bidders  in  the  open  market 
annually  increases  by  hundreds  of  thousands.  Not 
only  do  they  require  land,  but  every  immigrant 
raises  a  family  and  thus  adds  still  more  to  our 
national  wealth. 

These  wonderful  accumulations  of  our  rich  alone 


20  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

are  the  cause  of  the  magnpficent  endowments  to 
church  and  school,  to  science  and  industry. 
Churches  built,  universities  endowed,  science 
encouraged  —  these  are  but  the  overflow  of  the 
fertilizing  stream  of  American  industry.  Smoke- 
stacks and  steeples,  factories  and  universities, 
industry  and  science  are  inevitably  and  logically 
linked  together,  never  again  to  be  separated.  They 
are  the  bride  and  bridegroom  of  American  prog- 
ress, foremost  in  the  race  of  time  on  the  path  of 
culture  and  civilization. 

The  benefactions  in  our  country  in  the  year  1905 
amounted  to  $104,000,000,  excluding  gifts  under 
$5,000  which  I  venture  to  say  would  exceed  this 
sum.  Nor  was  1905  an  abnormal  year.  During 
the  13  years  ending  1905  the  magnificent  sum  of 
about  $800,000,000  was  contributed  for  educational 
and  eleemosynary  institutions.  Where  and  when 
in  history  shall  we  find  a  parallel?  The  combined 
benefactions  of  all  Europe  and  Asia  with  their 
teeming  millions  of  population  does  not  equal  it. 
I  take  pride  in  such  figures;  I  feel  proud  that  we 
have  such  benefactors.  And  these  are  the  men  you 
would  retire!  It  would  be  a  public  calamity  and 
crying  shame.  Such  a  suggestion  can  emanate  only 
from  a  cracked  brain.     Let  us  retire  those  who  are 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  21 

in  no  position  to  render  any  assistance  to  society. 

I  am  a  retired  man  myself.  I  do  not  wish  to 
inflict  the  pains  and  penalties  of  my  inactivity  upon 
Rockefeller.  Do  you  know  what  it  means  to  retire 
a  man  of  his  ability  and  brains  and  past  activity? 
It  would  be  a  decree  of  death.  We  have  not  the 
comforts  and  leisure  of  an  idle  class  as  found  in  the 
countries  of  Europe.  The  horse-back  paths  in 
town  and  country,  in  field  and  forest,  the  fine  way- 
side inns,  the  morning  museums  and  art  galleries, 
the  4  o'clock  cafes,  the  6  o'clock  operas,  the  after- 
noon concerts,  the  promenade  avenues,  the  side 
walk  restaurants  —  these,  the  conditions  of  Euro- 
pean nobility,  cannot  lure  to  retirement  the  never- 
ceasing  energies  of  the  true  American.  As  his 
fellow  associates,  his  friends,  all  work  until  death 
issues  its  irrevocable  decree  of  perpetual  retire- 
ment, so  the  life  of  the  American  hustler  must  be 
continued  labor;  its  infraction  is  the  signal  for  the 
approach  of  Father  Time. 

So  I  reiterate,  these  captains  of  industry  have 
made  us  famous.  Their  organizations  are  the 
concern  of  foreign  dukes,  kings,  and  emperors,  who 
deal  more  in  our  stocks  than  those  of  their  native 
land.  Indeed,  these  captains  of  industry  are  our 
princes.     They  have  earned  the  title;  it  has  not 


22  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

been  thrust  upon  them.  These  industrial  corpo- 
rations have  made  us  bigger  than  our  army  or  navy. 
They  spread  the  gospel  of  peace  and  plenty,  sym- 
pathy and  love  more  effectually,  speedily,  and 
universally  than  all  the  missionaries  since  the  days 
of  Paul.  And  they  maintain  it  more  enduringly 
than  could  the  most  powerful  fleet  of  ironclads  and 
submarines. 

When,  in  no  distant  future,  the  American  people 
will  set  the  pace  in  art,  science,  and  education  as 
they  now  do  in  industry,  they  will  appreciate  that 
trade  and  commerce  must  precede  all  other  culture. 
Trade  and  wealth  are  power,  and  power  will  secure 
all  things  that  the  human  mind  idealizes.  We  are 
already  a  creditor  nation  where  twenty-five  years 
ago  we  were  debtors ;  London  and  Paris  and  Berlin 
can  no  longer  avoid  our  bank  counters. 

I  do  not  propose  to  engage  your  time  in  recalling 
in  particular  the  splendid  services  Mr.  Rockefeller 
has  rendered  in  organizing  business.  You  know 
the  anarchy  of  all  industrial  pursuit  before  he 
entered  the  arena.  You  well  know  the  saving  he 
has  effected  in  labor,  and  the  cost  of  production  in 
general;  the  economies  he  has  proven  in  operating 
diverse  branches  of  industry;  the  energies  and 
activities  he  has  effectively  centralized.     Whoever 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  23 

can  not  apprehend  this  monumental  and  glorious 
enrichment  of  society  must  certainly  appreciate  the 
more  direct  social  benefits  of  his  great  charity  and 
beneficence.  Mr.  Rockefeller's  absolute  and  con- 
tingent gifts  last  year  exceeded  $12,000,000  which 
was  not  at  all  an  exceptional  sum  for  him.  Surely 
so  long  as  he  remains  an  easy  maker,  he  will  con- 
tinue a  liberal  spender.  The  evil  consequences 
would  arise  from  his  retirement  rather  than  from 
his  continued  labor.  Further  accumulation  by 
him  will  redound  as  much  or  more  to  the  credit  of 
the  American  people  as  to  him  personally.  He 
cannot  eat  his  money;  he  must  employ  it,  invest  it. 
His  name  is  synonymous  with  thrift,  frugality,  and 
industry.  /No  man  can  be  conscious  of  a  greater 
or  more  valuable  legacy  to  posterity  than  he.  His 
life  will  ever  be  the  source  of  inspiration  to  the 
youth  of  the  land.  Let  us  hope  that  the  Creator 
may  grant  him  30  more  years  of  unimpaired 
strength  and  youthful  activity. 
I  vote  "No." 

"Some  must  follow  and  some 
command,  though  all  are  born  of 
clay." — Longfelloiv. 


''Creed  characterizes  a  base  na- 
ture— the  soul  in  which  it  has  taken 
root,  withers  and  dies ;  all  higher 
aspirations  disappear.  The  miser 
at  last  begrudges  himself  and  oth- 
ers, all  that  is  good." — Anon. 

TRAMP 

Perhaps  you,  boys,  think  that,  because  I'm  a 
tramp,  I  have  no  opinion  on  this  subject.  But  I 
believe  that  I've  thought  about  these  things  more 
than  any  of  you.  While  you  spend  your  time 
making  money,  I'm  reflecting  on  the  social  misery 
and  ills  of  modern  society.  For  days  and  weeks,  by 
night  and  by  day,  have  I  tried  to  construct  a  new 
order  of  things.  How  often  have  I  meditated 
on  the  hard  lot  of  the  poor,  and  the  good  fortune  of 
the  rich!  And,  being  an  idler,  I  have  often  pon- 
dered and  reflected  especially  concerning  the  pre- 
vailing notion  of  our  people,  that  it  is  better  to 
produce  more  than  we  consume.  I,  too,  would 
believe  in  this  heresy,  if  each  producer  would  give 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  25 

society  the  benefit  of  his  over-production.  Such  a 
condition,  however,  never  will  prevail,  since  it 
would  conflict  with  man's  pride  and  egoism. 

When  a  man  produces  more  than  he  consumes, 
is  he  not  a  competitor  with  his  fellow-man  to  the 
extent  of  the  over-production?  By  continuing  to 
produce,  after  satisfying  his  ordinary  wants,  he 
increases  the  gulf  between  himself  and  others;  by 
ceasing  to  labor,  his  wealth  becomes  dissipated,  he 
becomes  an  ordinary  citizen,  and  advocates,  like 
me,  democracy  and  equality. 

Formerly,  indeed,  we  were  taught  that  a  penny 
saved  is  a  penny  earned;  that  frugality  is  a  vast 
revenue  and  other  like  nonsense.  Today  thrift  and 
frugality  are  everywhere  considered  eclipsed  vir- 
tues. Every  fool  now  knows  that  wages  depend 
on  the  standard  of  living.  The  laborer  gets,  as 
in  all  cases  of  value,  just  what  it  costs  to  produce 
him.  The  laboring  class  with  expensive  wants 
requires  and  therefore  demands  and  receives  high 
wages.  As  thrift  means  cheap  living,  it  is  an  evil 
to  the  laborers  as  a  class,  though  it  may  enable  one 
who  practices  it  to  get  the  advantage  of  his  fellows. 
"Thrift  was  invented  by  capitalistic  rogues  to 
beguile  fools  to  destruction"  was  a  saying  of  one 


26  Rockt'ft'llt'r  Before  a  Jury 

of  mv  early  acquaintances.  Another  comrade,  a 
former  trade-union  enthusiast  taught  me  that 
"labor  is  an  evil  to  be  minimized  to  the  utmost. 
The  man  icho  works  at  his  trade  or  vocation  more 
than  necessity  compels  him,  or  nho  accumulates 
more  than  he  can  enjoy,  is  not  a  hero  but  a  fool. 
To  accumulate  money  in  any  way  is  to  accumulate 
orders  on  other  men's  labor."  These  lessons  I 
learned  early  in  my  career;  I  have  never  forgotten 
them.  Look  about  and  show  me  a  thrifty  man  and 
I  will  show  you  a  selfish  man!  Thrift  and  selfish 
are  synonymous  terms:  the  thrifts-  use  the  unthrifty 
as  stepping-stones  for  their  own  elevation.  Thrift 
is  a  virtue  only  while  some  people  remain  unthrift\^ 
The  more  general  it  becomes,  the  less  we  appraise 
it;  the  less  general,  the  higher  its  value.  Thrift, 
we  see  then,  becomes  a  higher  and  more  selfish 
virtue  as  poverty  becomes  general  —  in  other 
words,  in  proportion  as  the  army  of  outcasts 
increases. 

Boys,  we  must  change  our  ideas  along  this  line. 
When  a  man  has  enough  for  his  ordinary  wants, 
he's  a  detriment  to  his  race  if  he  continues  to  labor; 
his  activity  is  an  evidence  of  his  indifference  to  the 
rights  and  the  welfare  of  others.     That  nation,  in 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  27 

which  there  exists  the  least  difference  in  the  for- 
tunes of  its  citizens,  is  the  most  efficient  for  the 
promulgation  of  the  doctrines  of  liberty,  equality, 
and  fraternity.  No,  boys,  our  ideal  must  be  to 
consume  more  than  we  produce.  That  tends 
towards  equality,  towards  unselfishness,  towards 
liberty.  Of  course  it  would  not  do  that  everybody 
follow  this  ideal  and,  I  guess,  there's  no  danger. 
But,  between  the  two  ideals  of  producing  more 
than  we  consume,  or  consuming  more  than  we 
produce,  there  can  be  no  question  of  their  com- 
parative value.  This,  too,  was  the  prevailing 
opinion  of  the  Fathers  of  our  country.  Prior  to 
the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  with  very  few  exceptions, 
every  year  witnessed  an  enormous  export  excess 
over  our  imports.  Then,  a  source  of  pride ;  today, 
a  cause  of  alarm.  Such  a  state  of  affairs,  with  our 
changed  notions,  would  be  regarded  as  national 
suicide. 

But  coming  more  directly  to  the  question  before 
us  —  if  Rockefeller  does  not  want  to  retire,  so 
much  the  better  for  me.  I'm  willing.  If  there 
are  those  who  produce  more  than  they  consume, 
there  must  be  those  who  consume  more  than  they 
produce.     There  can  be  no  millionaires  without 


28  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

paupers;  no  Rockefellers  without  tramps.  The 
one  is  based  on  the  other.  The  life  of  the  over- 
strenuous  conditions  the  life  of  the  under-strenuous 
—  light  always  casts  a  shadow. 

I  once  had  a  little  fortune  saved  up  myself.  It 
took  a  long  time,  boys.  But,  after  working  fifteen 
years,  I  saved  up  and  had  in  the  bank  about  $5,000. 
Ah!  I  felt  rich  then.  But  my  wife  got  sick,  and 
my  two  children  weren't  strong;  and  what  I  saved 
in  fifteen  years,  I  lost  in  three.  I  had  a  good  job, 
earning  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  per  day.  During 
all  the  time  I  worked,  we  had  only  one  strike.  We 
lost  it.  We  didn't  get  what  we  wanted.  But  we 
got  a  pile  more  of  respect  after  that.  That  made 
him  afraid  of  us.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  strike, 
perhaps  he'd  have  cut  our  wages.  In  the  year 
1892,  when  his  income  increased,  I  guess,  from  five 
thousand  to  fifty  thousand,  he  increased  our  wages 
ten  cents  a  day.  Afterwards,  in  the  world's  panic 
of  1893,  I  guess  he  didn't  make  so  much,  for  half 
of  us  were  discharged,  and  the  other  half  were 
glad  to  earn  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day.  I  don't 
suppose  he  lost  anything  even  in  the  hard  times. 
If  he  had  he  wouldn't  have  run  the  business;  or, 
he'd  have  cut  our  wages  still  more.     But  the  poor 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  29 

devils  who  were  out  of  a  job  couldn't  discharge 
their  families,  nor  could  they  reduce  the  price  of 
meat  and  rent.  Well,  let  that  go;  let  bygones  be 
bygones.  Our  boss  is  retired  now,  living  in  Europe 
off  of  what  he  saved  during  the  days  of  prosperity — 
the  time  when  he  gave  us  ten  cents  a  day  raise. 
I'm  retired  too,  living  off  of  my  ten  cents  per  day 
prosperity  and  the  discharge  which  I  got  in  1896. 
It  happened  this  way:  just  before  the  Presidential 
Election,  he  discharged  all  of  us,  and  said,  if 
McKinley  should  be  elected,  business  would  be 
plenty,  and  we  would  all  get  a  job  again  at  good 
wages;  but,  if  Bryan  should  be  elected,  we  needn't 
come  around.  Well,  I  did  what  I  could  for  a  job 
—  voted  for  Mack.  But,  when  I  went  around 
after  his  election,  I  didn't  get  my  job  anyway.  I 
sued  him  but  the  learned  judge  said  there  was  no 
"mutuality  of  contract"  or  something  like  that  — 
that  I  hadn't  agreed  to  work  for  my  employer  for  a 
definite  period  of  time  and  therefore  there  was  no 
consideration  for  my  employer's  promise.  Occa- 
sionally, after  running  around  —  I  might  say 
working  two  or  three  weeks  to  get  a  job  —  I  got 
a  week's  work  here  and  there.  But  how  could  I 
and  my  family  live  on  that? 


30  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

My  wife  and  family  have  died  since.  What 
should  I  work  for?  For  whom?  I  can  always 
get  enough  to  eat,  and  enough  water  to  drink,  and 
the  patches  on  my  pants  ofifend  neither  me  nor  my 
friends.  What  I  need,  is  always  at  hand  through 
the  kindheartedness  and  generosity  of  the  chari- 
table housewife.  Besides,  I  got  to  reading  a  little 
religion  and  philosophy.  I  read  a  little  Christian- 
ity, and  a  little  more  Buddhism.  That  Buddha 
must  have  been  a  smart  man,  bovs.  I  think  he  had 
more  learning  than  Christ.  But  great  minds  may 
difTfer  as  to  that.  What  I  liked  about  Buddhism 
was  the  doctrine,  that  the  source  of  all  evil  is  the 
desire  for  things  which  change  and  pass  away,  and 
that  all  present  life  is  change.  Of  course,  this 
same  thought  appears  often  enough  in  Christianity', 
but  not  so  prominently.  Buddhism  has  five  express 
and  explicit  commandments,  so  plain  as  to  be  little 
susceptible  of  misinterpretation: 

First  —  "Take  no  solid  food  after  noon." 

Second  —  "Do  not  visit  dancing,  singing  or  thea- 
trical representations." 

Third  —  "Use  no  ornaments  or  perfumery  in 
dress." 

Fourth  —  "Use  no  luxurious  beds." 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  31 

Fifth  —  "Accept  no  gold  nor  silver." 
These  commandments,  this  self-denial  became 
my  ideal,  and  hence  I  was  born  a  tramp.  Notwith- 
standing its  religious  character,  my  job  is  the  envy 
of  none.  Indeed,  it's  the  nightmare  of  all ;  it 
incites  labor  and  accumulation;  unlike  many  of 
yours,  it  has  never  caused  the  flow  of  tears.  No 
one  has  ever  worn  mourning  because  of  my  actions. 
My  appearance  and  condition  awaken  the  anxieties 
and  love  of  all  the  sympathetically  inclined;  it 
keeps  the  fire  of  loving  mankind  lit  and  well 
burning.  We  are  the  vestal  virgins  of  Christianity; 
were  it  not  for  my  kind,  I  fear  the  flame  would  long 
ago  have  been  extinguished.  My  joys  are  unal- 
loyed with  the  usual  sorrows.  The  loss  of  my 
handkerchief,  and  its  contents,  would  not  affect 
my  sleep,  which  is  always  sound.  My  hair  is 
luxuriant,  my  stomach  healthy,  my  feet  broad,  my 
limbs  strong.  My  senses  are  more  acute  and  alert 
than  yours.  I  can  see  a  policeman  four  blocks  off, 
and  smell  a  good  sandwich  two  miles  away.  Cook- 
ing, whether  good  or  bad,  never  nauseates  me.  I 
enjoy  the  best  operas  and  concerts  at  the  smallest 
price.       The  meadow-lark;  the  robin,  the  whip- 


32  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

poor-will    speak   and   sing   to   me   in   their  most 
harmonious  language. 

My  memory  is  well  trained;  it  never  fails  me. 
I  never  forget  the  generous  giver  of  a  good  lunch, 
and  will  continue  to  pay  my  calls  at  such  stands, 
so  long  as  a  sparing  diet,  vigorous  walking,  and 
pure  atmosphere  are  the  condition  of  health  and 
wealth.  I  never  make  a  mistake;  neither  do  my 
confreres  in  happiness.  We  know  all  the  palaces 
and  their  ruling  Queens  who  have  sympathy  for 
our  kind.  Their  sumptuous,  regal  banquets  of  a 
bologna  sandwich,  always  cheerfully  given,  will 
ever  live  in  a  grateful  memory.  The  life  of  many 
dogs  in  the  large  cities  depends  upon  our  industry. 
Our  business  gone,  their  eyesight  w^ould  become 
impaired,  their  occupation  cease,  the  day  of  their 
uselessness  be  at  hand.  The  caricaturist,  the 
stage,  the  author  —  what  could  they  do  without 
us?  Of  course  some  of  you,  boys,  are  smarter  than 
I  am  —  that  is,  in  some  respects.  But  I  have 
noticed  that  some  of  you  are  deuced  stupid  along 
other  lines.  Why,  I  talked  with  one  of  our  jury- 
men who,  when  he  begins  to  speak,  judging  by  his 
soaring  flights  of  oratory  and  his  eloquent  perora- 
tions, may  seem  to  some  of  you  as  the  very  oracle 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  33 

of  heaven.  Well,  I  asked  him  before,  whether 
potatoes  were  ripe  in  his  country.  What  do  you 
think  he  replied?  "I  don't  know  when  potatoes 
are  ripe  in  my  or  any  other  country.  I  concern 
myself  with  higher  things."  Well,  boys,  I'll  bet 
he  doesn't  even  know  when  potatoes  are  planted, 
although  he  eats  more  than  I  do.  Can  you  imagine 
a  greater  piece  of  ignorance? 

It  seems  that  today  intelligence  consists  in  being 
bright  in  unessential  things  and  ignorant  of  the 
important  and  essential  affairs  of  life.  Some  of 
you  know  that  it  is  good  to  take  Scott's  Emulsion 
for  indigestion,  Paine's  Celery  Compound  for 
sleeplessness,  Hoffman's  Headache  Powders  to 
stop  a  night's  carousal.  You  may  know  the  virtues 
of  Warner's  Kidney  and  Liver  Cure,  and  Lyon's 
Hair  Restorer.  I  have  read  these  advertisements 
very  often  myself,  but  have  never  abused  kind 
Nature  enough  to  need  these  things.  But,  do  any 
of  you  know  how  many  miles  it  is,  and  how  many 
bridges  there  are,  from  here  to  Buffalo?  Do  you 
know  the  best  places  to  sleep  on  this  tramp?  Or 
in  what  towns  a  man  will  be  treated  with  dignity 
and  respect  by  the  police?  Can  you  tell  a  generous 
man  before  he  speaks,  or  a  charitable  woman  by 


34  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

her  countenance?  Do  you  know  whether  a  dog 
has  teeth  before  you  ask  him?  Do  you  know  or 
can  you  recognize  the  conductor,  whose  heart  is 
bigger  than  his  eyes?  And  so,  gentlemen,  I  could, 
if  I  wanted  to  take  your  time,  show  you,  by  a  thou- 
sand questions,  how  ignorant  you  are,  and  how 
much  you  still  have  to  learn  in  my  business.  It's 
not  as  simple  as  you  think.  Indeed,  I  believe  that 
the  man  with  the  meanest  job  knows  as  many 
things,  unknown  to  us,  as  we  do,  unknown  to  him. 
You  don't  find  these  details  in  the  books.  It 
takes  years  of  patient  experience  and  calm  reflec- 
tion to  learn  them  and  to  forget  the  others.  But 
once  you  get  into  holy  communion  with  divine 
nature,  once  God  reveals  his  secrets  to  you  through 
his  works,  you  become  proud  and  majestic;  you 
begin  to  feel  that  you  are  God  himself. 

But  you  answer  that  my  learning  has  no  value. 
But  has  yours?  Do  you  know  the  value  of  yours 
from  any  other  standpoint  than  that  of  your  own? 
Which  of  you  in  estimating  the  value  of  your 
learning  balances  in  the  scales  the  ideals  of  society 
of  all  ages  and  all  countries?  How  limited  is  your 
horizon?  Even  if  you  lived  a  hundred  years  and 
had  a  million  pounds  of  will  pressure,  do  you  think 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  35 

you  could  acquire  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  past 
to  create  and  pass  a  correct,  positive,  and  enduring 
judgment  on  the  value  of  your  ideals?  You, 
gentlemen,  chicken-like,  are  scratching  and  moving 
a  little  surface-soil;  worm-like,  you're  making  a 
few  holes  here;  and,  ant-like,  some  sand  heaps 
there;  but  what's  the  value  of  it  all?  The  first 
wind  or  rain-storm  that  comes  along  will  annihilate 
your  vain,  puerile,  and  futile  purposes  and  efforts. 
You  all  act  like  horses  in  a  burning  barn.  You're 
running  hither  and  thither,  but  you  know  not 
whither.  You  will  not  appreciate  the  emptiness 
of  your  existence  until  your  race  has  been  run. 

I  like  my  job.     Rockefeller  probably  likes  his. 
He  and  his  kind  are  the  creators  of  our  class. 

I  vote  "No." 

"What  troubles  you  is  not  the 
lack  of  certain  things,  but  the  be- 
lief that  you  cannot  be  happy  with- 
out them.  It  is  in  your  power  not 
to  desire  them." — Marcus  Aurelius. 
"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mor- 
tal be  proud  ? 
Like  a  swift-fleeting  meteor,  a  fast 

flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of 

the  wave, 
Man  passes  from  life  to  his  rest  in 
the  grave." — Wm.  Knox. 


"How  happy  is  he,  born  or  taught 
Who  serveth  not  another's  will 

Whose  armour  is  his  honest  thought 
And  simple  truth  his  utmost  skill, 

"This   man   is    free   from   toil   and 

bonds 

Of  hope  to  rise  or  fear  to  fall 

Lord  of  himself,  tho'  not  of  lands 

And    having    nothing,    yet    hath 

all." — Sir  Henry  Wotton. 

"The  definite  result  of  all  our 
modern  haste  to  be  rich  is  assuredly 
and  constantly  the  murder  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  persons  by  our 
hands  every  year." — Ruskin. 

RETAILER 


Mr.  Chairman : — 

Rockefeller  should  retire.  He  should  have  done 
so  years  ago.  The  newspapers  say  that  he  possesses 
a  fortune  of  $500,000,000,  with  an  annual  income 
of  $50,000,000.  Can  you  grasp  that?  Can  you 
conceive  such  figures?     Do  you  know  what  that 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  37 

means?  It  means  that  the  fortunes  of  500,000 
people,  each  with  a  capital  of  $1,000  have  been 
consolidated,  that  the  small  independent  dealer  has 
become  a  day  laborer.  $50,000,000  annual  income 
represents  more  than  interest,  and  whatever  exceeds 
interest,  represents  special  privilege  —  a  special 
advantage  that  the  ordinary  man  with  capital  does 
not  enjoy  and  cannot  acquire.  Usually  the  rate  of 
interest  or  profit  of  money  declines  with  the  in- 
crease of  the  amount  borrowed  or  invested.  Not 
so  here.  Is  that  not  significant?  Allowing  four 
per  cent  as  a  generous  rate  of  interest,  his  $500,- 
000,000  should  earn  $2,000,000;  and  allowing  him 
a  liberal  compensation  for  his  services,  namely, 
$100,000,  would  make  an  annual  income  of  $2,100,- 
000.  If  instead  of  this  munificent  sum,  his  income 
be  $50,000,000,  as  is  generally  reported,  he  is  over- 
drawing on  the  energies  and  the  independence  of 
small  dealers  of  $1000  capital  to  the  number  of 
47,900  per  annum.  The  bankruptcy  of  these 
bread-winners  means  the  pauperization  of  their 
families.  The  social  disaster  entailed  thereby  can- 
not be  overestimated.  Their  families  generally 
cast  upon  the  charity  of  the  affluent,  the  bank- 
rupt dealer  is  compelled  to  enlist  his  services,  under 


38  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

disturbed  and  rearranged  business  conditions,  in  a 
new  and  unknown  industry.  His  labor  is  thrown 
in  competition  with  that  of  children;  his  compen- 
sation is  regulated  by  their  meager  wants.  A  few 
years  of  this  goes  on  until  he  no  longer  can  keep  up 
the  rapid  pace;  finally  and  necessarily  he  becomes 
a  sycophant  at  the  court  of  the  rich,  a  beggar  for 
their  charitable  favor;  his  independence  gone,  his 
manhood  forsakes  him. 

Of  course  this  disaster  is  not  all  due  to  Rocke- 
feller personally,  but  to  the  large  combinations  of 
capital  which  produce  his  enormous  profits.  The 
big  fellows  have  gotten  together.  They  have  com- 
bined mainly  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  com- 
petition, regulating  output,  and  fixing  the  price  of 
their  purchases.  Only  a  few  years  ago  all  combin- 
ations effected  for  the  purpose  of  raising  prices 
or  limiting  production  were  illegal.  The  statutes 
of  state  and  nation  teemed  with  laws  reiterating 
and  reenacting  in  modified  form  this  common  law 
of  the  United  States  and  England.  In  spite  of 
these  laws  combinations  are  effected  for  no  other 
purpose  whatsoever  —  combinations  so  vast,  so 
powerful,  so  influential  that  their  luring  voice 
thrills    the    judicial,    legislative,    and    executive 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  39 

branches  of  our  government.  Gradually  and 
stealthily  that  which  only  yesterday  was  illegal, 
has  become  legal.  The  reprehensible  has  become 
commendable.  Forty  years  ago  Bench  and  Bar 
seriously  discussed  whether  a  corporation  could 
sign  a  promissory  note  or  a  bond,  or  bill  of  exchange 
—  whether  it  could  be  surety  for  the  debt  of  an- 
other. Charters  were  regarded  as  special  privil- 
eges to  be  granted  only  as  a  matter  of  favor  by  the 
legislature;  the  corporation's  act  required  special 
formalities,  its  powers  were  exercised  only  in  a 
prescribed  and  very  limited  manner.  Today  a  cor- 
poration may  practically  do  anything  an  individ- 
ual may  do.  They  establish  custom;  our  statutes 
ratify  and  legalize  it.  The  sphere  of  the  former 
is  encroaching  on  the  domain  of  the  latter.  The 
letter  of  the  law  has  given  way  to  its  interpretation. 
The  absurd  has  become  reasonable,  and  the  rea- 
sonable absurd.  Books,  treating  of  corporations, 
their  powers  and  rights,  of  forty  years  ago  are 
antiquated  and  useless.  In  thirty  years,  in  the  sec- 
ond half  of  the  i8th  century,  only  one  corporation 
was  formed  in  the  state  of  Massachusetts;  a  little 
later  the  proposition  to  grant  a  banking  charter 
aroused   the   people   to   their   utmost   depths  —  it 


40  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

engaged  the  attention  of  the  House,  Senate,  and 
President  of  our  national  government  for  weeks 
and  months.  It  became  a  national  issue.  Today 
no  Jacksons  are  needed  to  fight  banking  charters. 
They  organize  under  general  laws  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  right.  States  are  even  competing  for 
the  favor.     They  have  become  a  boon  to  society. 

United  States  statistics,  as  well  as  English  and 
German,  show  that,  through  the  devastating  influ- 
ence of  these  monopolies,  the  number  of  employers 
is  diminishing,  the  number  of  employees  increas- 
ing, and  our  middle  class  slowly  disappearing.  The 
following  comparative  statistics  of  the  year  1882 
and  1895  show  the  gradual  decline  of  the  middle 
class  in  Germany: 

Workmen     1882  1895 

Industries  with  1-5     2,175.857  1,989,572  8.6%  decrease 

Industries  with  6-50        85.001  139,459  64.1%  increase 

Industries  with      50          9,481  17,941  89.3%  increase 

Comparing  the  statistics  of  1875  and  1895  of 
those  occupied  independently,  or  as  employers,  in 
gainful  occupations  with  those  engaged  as  em- 
ployee in  Germany,  we  find  that  the  former  class 
has  increased  0.13  per  cent,  while  the  latter,  the 
dependent  employee,  has  increased  101.41  percent. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  41 

These  figures  are  particularly  noteworthy  by  rea- 
son of  the  enormous  growth  of  the  German  popu- 
lation during  these  years,  comparable  only  with 
the  American  increase.  But  the  era  of  trust  for- 
mation did  not  really  commence  until  after  the 
year  1895,  ^^^  ^^e  German  trust  never  assumed  the 
proportion  of  its  American  parent.  The  capital 
stock  of  five  leading  trusts  in  the  States,  formed 
since  1895,  exceeds  that  of  the  fifty  leading  "Kar- 
tells" operating  in  Germany;  it  surpasses  even  the 
capital  stock  of  the  75  leading  English  combina- 
tions. 

A  few  figures  taken  from  the  last  U.  S.  Census 
Statistics  of  Manufactures,  Vol.  7,  page  LXXII, 
will  give  us  some  idea  of  the  steady  concentration 
of  wealth,  and  of  the  decrease  in  the  number  of  em- 
ployers. The  number  of  establishments  in  the 
United  States  in  the  industry  of 

In  the  year  Were         In  the  year       Were 

Boots  and  shoes...  1900  1,600 

Carpets  and  rugs..  1900  133 

Cotton  goods 1900  1,055 

Iron  and  steel 1900  668 

Leather   1900  1,306 

Liquors   1900  1,509 

Ship-building 1900  1,1 16 

Woolen  goods 1900  1,035 


1850 

1.333 

i860 

213 

i8so 

1,094 

1880 

6gg 

1850 

6,686 

1870 

1,072 

1880 

2,188 

1870 

2.891 

42  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

Do  these  figures  not  show  that  man  is  slowly  and 
steadily  losing  his  independence?  That  jobs  are 
more  and  more  becoming  a  matter  of  favor  and 
influence?  That  a  premium  is  offered  to  servility 
and  beggary? 

The  same  process  of  belittling  the  little  fellow 
and  of  aggrandizing  the  big  one  is  at  work  in  the 
agricultural  field.  Statistics  of  the  size  of  farms 
in  the  year  1880,  compared  with  number  of  like 
farms  in  1890,  show  that: 

farms  between  50  and  100  acres  increased  8.58% 
"  *'       500     "    1000     "  "         11.09% 

"     over  1000     "  "         10.39% 

Should  we  not  reenact  the  Roman  Licinian  law 
passed  387  B.  C,  that  no  citizen  should  hold  more 
than  500  jugera  (about  625  acres)? 

Already  Blue  Books  are  printed  and  scattered 
broad-cast  in  the  land.  The  pedigree  of  our  nobil- 
ity is  published  with  the  preciseness  and  effusive- 
ness of  that  of  foreign  kings.  Their  walks,  their 
rides,  their  dinners,  their  clothes  are  the  court  gos- 
sip of  the  idle  flunkies  in  our  country.  O'nly  when 
they  publish  the  exact  number  of  their  millions  will 
we  know  the  rank  among  themselves.  But  Rocke- 
fellers, Vanderbilts,  Goulds,  Astors,  Havemeyers, 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  43 

Lorillards,  Armours,  Belmonts,  Whitneys  and 
Leiters  have  blue  blood  since  "Cr"  appears  often 
and  large  enough  in  their  ledgers. 

John  Bright  once  said  "The  nation  in  every 
country  resides  in  the  cottage!"  He  referred  to 
the  farmer  independent  of  the  lord  of  the  manor, 
to  the  small  dealer  independent  of  the  trustees  of 
industry  —  in  a  word,  to  the  middle  class.  No 
truism  ever  had  a  more  democratic  ring.  If  ever 
it  had  importance  or  signification  it  is  now  in  our 
present  era.  Our  energy  has  become  mortgaged 
to  conscienceless  trustees.  Our  present  system  of 
trade  and  industry  is  enriching  the  few  at  the  cost 
of  the  many;  the  pecuniary  gulf  between  them  is 
widening.  This,  in  turn,  creates  social  differences, 
which  sooner  or  later  will  find  expression  in  diverg- 
ing and  conflicting  social  and  political  ideals. 
"No  government  half  free  and  half  slave  can  long 
exist,"  said  Lincoln.  But  is  not  the  condition  of  a 
society  with  one  employer  and  ninety-nine  laborers 
consumptive  and  diseased,  more  deplorable  and 
intolerable? 

Rockefeller,  one  of  the  leading,  if  not  the  fore- 
most, trust  organizer,  is  the  arch-enemy  of  the  mid- 
dle class.     Not  by  way  of  punishment,  but  by  way 


44  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

of  self-preservation  of  myself  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  others,  must  I  vote  to  retire  all  such 
men. 


I  vote  "Yes." 


"Let  all  your  views  in  life  be  dir- 
ected to  a  solid,  however  moderate, 
independence ;  without  it  no  man 
can  be  happy,  nor  even  honest." — 
Junius. 


"He  only  earns  his  freedom  and 
existence  who  daily  conquers  them 
anew.'' — Anon. 


LABORER 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

I  vote  yes,  and  I  wish  to  express  myself  very 
emphatically,  though  without  disparaging  in  the 
least  Mr.  Rockefeller's  marked  ability,  and  with- 
out casting  any  aspersions  upon  his  personal  char- 
acter. We  need  such  men;  but  their  services 
should  be  enlisted  in  the  ideals  of  the  century. 
And  if  our  age  is  representative  at  all  of  any  one 
principle,  it  is  of  the  growing  equality  of  man 
through  the  sovereignty  of  labor.  I  have  given 
this  subject  much  attention.  It  is  my  life  blood, 
and  I  beg  you  to  excuse  me  if  T  seem  unnecessarily 
lengthy  in  my  remarks. 

For  centuries  labor  has  staggered  and  stagnated 


46  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

under  the  dead  weight  of  favoritism,  special  priv- 
ilege, and  crowned  heads.  Not  suddenly  and  spon- 
taneously has  it  acquired  recognition  of  its  divin- 
ity, but  through  long,  tedious  trials  and  severe  trib- 
ulations. Ordeals  of  torture,  trials  of  patience, 
and  baths  of  blood  have  been  its  lot.  The  progress 
of  labor  is  the  story  of  the  advance  of  our  civiliza- 
tion. Up  to  the  1 8th  century  its  general  condition 
was  that  of  serfdom.  Labor  was  bought  and  sold 
with  the  land  as  though  it  were  planted  and  grown 
like  a  potato.  Pause  with  me  a  moment  while  I 
narrate  a  little  of  the  history  of  the  laborer's  strug- 
gle for  recognition  in  the  European  countries. 

In  England  in  the  year  1348  the  Statute  of 
Laborers  was  passed,  forcing  every  poor  man  to 
work  for  an  employer  at  the  same  wages  as  two 
years  before;  it  forbade  him  to  leave  his  parish; 
runaway  laborers  when  caught  were  branded  in 
the  forehead  with  hot  irons.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-five  years  ago  the  law  of  civilized  England 
recognized  tsvo  hundred  and  twenty-three  capital 
crimes.  For  stealing  to  the  value  of  five  shillings, 
for  shooting  at  rabbits,  or  for  cutting  down  young 
trees,  the  penalty  was  death.  Traitors  were  cut  to 
pieces  by  the  executioner  and  their  heads  exposed 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  47 

on  Temple  Bar  to  the  derision  of  passers-by. 
Prisoners  were  forced  to  buy  from  the  jailer  (who 
had  no  salary)  their  food  and  even  the  straw  upon 
which  to  lie  at  night.  They  were  allowed  to  stand, 
chained  by  the  ankles,  outside  the  jail,  to  sell 
articles  of  their  own  manufacture.  Thus  John 
Bunyan  sold  cotton  lace  in  front  of  Bedford  Prison. 

In  all  England  there  were  but  three  thousand 
schools,  public  and  private,  and  as  late  as  1818  half 
of  the  children  grew  up  destitute  of  education. 
Newspapers  were  taxed  eight  cents  per  copy 
mainly  to  render  them  too  costly  for  the  poor,  and 
so  to  restrain  what  was  considered  their  deleterious 
influence  on  the  masses. 

But  if  this  was  the  degraded  condition  of  the 
aspiring  laborer  in  progressive  England  it  was  no 
better,  as  we  may  readily  imagine,  on  the  continent. 
Indeed,  England  has  ever  been  the  locomotive  of 
the  continental  train  of  commercial  and  political 
progress.  For  liberty  of  conscience,  liberty  of 
press,  liberty  of  person,  liberty  of  trade,  liberty  of 
labor,  the  European  eye  follows  the  setting  sun. 
The  great  reorganization  of  1789  in  enlightened 
France  was  prompted  by  English  conditions.  Let 
me  narrate  a  little  history  of  the  formative  days  of 


48  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  French  republic.  During  the  days  of  Rous- 
seau, Voltaire,  and  Diderot  the  nobility  and  the 
clergy  owned  two-thirds  of  the  land.  Notwith- 
standing that  it  is  the  source  of  all  production,  their 
land  was  even  exempt  from  all  forms  of  taxation. 
Taxes  were  farmed  out  to  persons  who  retained  all 
they  could  collect  over  a  specified  amount.  Laws 
were  enacted  by  those  who  considered  the  common 
people  born  for  the  use  of  the  higher  class.  The 
weight  of  an  oath  in  court  depended  on  the  value 
of  the  testifier's  estate.  A  wealthy  man's  oath  was 
given  more  credence  than  that  of  a  thousand  poor, 
just  as  today  in  many  countries  a  political  system  is 
in  vogue  whereby  the  rich  man's  vote  counts  for  as 
much  as  that  of  ten  thousand  poor.  Peasants  were 
obliged  to  work  on  roads,  bridges,  etc.,  without 
pay.  The  power  given  to  the  nobleman  over  the 
peasants,  living  on  his  estate,  was  absolute.  He 
had  to  grind  his  own  corn  at  the  lord's  mill,  bake 
his  bread  in  the  lord's  oven,  and  press  his  grapes 
at  the  lord's  wine  press,  paying  whatever  price  the 
lord  might  charge. 

The  like  conditions  prevailed  in  Germany.  The 
most  horrible  and  heart-rending  torture  was  there 
practiced.     The  prisons  in  Hanover,  for  example, 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  49 

had  machines  for  tearing  off  the  hair  of  the  con- 
vict. Masters  beat  their  servants,  and  husbands 
their  wives  daily.  Children  of  five  years  of  age 
were  habitually  put  to  labor,  and  often  driven  to 
their  work  by  blows.  In  mines,  men  and  women, 
crawling  on  their  hands  and  feet  in  darkness, 
dragged  wagons  of  coal  fastened  to  their  waists  by 
a  chain.  Military  and  naval  discipline  was  main- 
tained by  the  lash;  and  in  the  streets  of  every  sea- 
port, the  press  gang  seized  and  carried  off  by  force 
all  whom  it  pleased,  to  be  sailors  on  the  men-of- 
war.  Villages  were  walled  and  so  secluded  that 
a  stranger  was  considered  an  enemy,  and  their 
inhabitants  set  their  dogs  upon  him. 

But  why  have  I  thus  gone  into  these  historic 
details  of  the  ascent  of  man?  Because  his  rise  is 
due  to  the  effort  of  the  proletariate  in  every  coun- 
try. In  France  it  was  the  fourth  estate.  In  the  war 
of  the  American  Revolution  the  first  estate  were 
English  loyalists,  and  the  American  patriots  the 
so-called  traitors.  In  Russia  it  is  the  laborer  who 
is  transplanted  to  Siberia  in  his  struggle  for  liberty. 
When  the  freedom  of  man  is  in  danger,  meetings 
of  laboring  men  all  over  the  world  rise  up  in  their 
might  and  protest  while  the  selfish  aristocrats  hide 


50  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

tlieir  dispassionate  and  indififerent  countenances 
behind  diplomacy  and  policy.  It  is  the  laborer, 
and  only  he,  who  risks  life  and  limb  in  behalf  of 
political  and  social  equality.  Every  revolution  for 
the  attainment  of  personal,  religious  or  commer- 
cial freedom  has  been  his  battle.  The  strife  has 
ever  been,  and  is  still  today,  progression  versus 
retroaction,  individual  liberty  versus  centralized 
power  —  a  continual  struggle  of  the  many  versus 
the  few,  of  the  Haven'ts  against  the  Haves. 

This  principle  is  best  illustrated  in  the  current 
affairs  of  monarchic  Europe,  where  labor  still 
occupies  a  subordinate  and  degraded  position. 
The  right  of  coalition  and  free  assembly,  until 
quite  recently  absolutely  forbidden,  is  now  much 
restricted,  and  generally  under  police  supervision. 
Religious  instruction  is  forced  upon  them  in 
school,  and  taxes  applied  for  the  maintenance  of 
church  and  clergy.  Titles  of  distinction  are  con- 
ferred upon  the  egotistic,  who  thereupon  become 
interested  in  maintaining  and  perpetuating  class 
institutions  whereby  the  unfortunate  shall  be  humil- 
iated and  degraded  by  the  opulent,  titled,  and  priv- 
ileged. The  badge  of  their  superiority  is  their 
snow-white  hands,  a  monocled  eye,  a  sabre  dang- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  51 

ling  at  their  sides,  and  a  contempt  for  the  laborer 
in  their  heart  —  this  still  constitutes  European 
nobility.  On  the  Continent  the  caste  system  is  as 
positively  defined  and  more  ostentatiously  her- 
alded and  proclaimed  than  in  Brahman  India. 

But  if  this  represents  correctly  the  struggle  of 
the  social  classes  in  certain  European  monarchies 
at  the  present  time,  I  am  proud  to  say  that  it  is  a 
local,  and  not  a  general,  condition;  and  relatively 
to  former  times  there  has  been  much  progress. 
The  laborer  has  in  every  land  greater  political, 
social,  and  economic  rights  than  ever  before.  He 
works  fewer  hours  and  gets  greater  pay.  Among 
civilized  nations  he  enjoys  the  freedom  of  contract, 
the  freedom  to  work,  the  freedom  to  emigrate,  the 
freedom  to  trade,  the  freedom  of  speech,  of  con- 
science, of  person,  and  of  property  —  all  of  which 
but  a  few  years  ago  were  prohibited.  In  many 
countries  he  counts  on  an  equality  with  dukes  and 
princes  in  the  exercise  of  his  electoral  franchise. 
His  oath  receives  the  same  credence.  In  short, 
he  has  become  a  man. 

This,  then,  is  the  significance  of  our  century. 
Not  spontaneously  and  without  sacrifice  has  it  been 
acquired,    but    through    organized    effort.      The 


52  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

organization  of  the  strong  and  the  weak,  the  skilled 
and  the  unskilled,  the  old  and  the  young  into  labor 
unions,  to  the  end  that  all  shall  be  treated  alike,  is 
the  best  evidence  of  our  Christian  faith  and  prog- 
ress. The  sacrifice,  toleration,  and  love  practiced 
within  the  ranks  of  these  millions  of  men  is  incom- 
parable with  that  effected  by  any  other  institution, 
not  excepting  the  church.  They  are  the  energetic, 
progressive,  civilizing  force  of  the  day.  The 
laborers  today  of  ever\^  land  are  organized  not  only 
into  national,  but  even  international,  unions  and 
congresses  for  their  mutual  protection.  They  are 
based  on  the  principle  that  every  man,  irrespective 
of  his  skill,  shall  be  treated  alike.  Where  is  the 
international  Congress  of  Merchants  advocating 
the  freedom  of  trade,  the  equal  rights  of  each  as 
against  each  other?  Instead  of  facilitating  inter- 
course between  themselves  they  send  their  agents 
to  Washington  to  restrict  trade,  to  gain  some 
special  favor  or  advantage  over  their  fellow-citi- 
zens, and  to  shelter  themselves  behind  a  high  pro- 
tective wall  as  against  foreigners.  They  are 
national,  w^here  the  laborers  are  international; 
selfish  where  we  are  unselfish  ;  seek  strife  where  we 
seek  peace.     If  the  laborers  sought  protection  by 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  53 

law  as  these  merchants  do,  they  would  go  to  Wash- 
ington and  secure  restriction  against  immigration. 
Instead,  we  find  them  opposed  to  such  measures. 
Did  we  laborers  lower  the  bar  of  immigration 
what  would  become  of  the  American  glory  and 
greatness?  When  our  land  no  longer  grants  an 
asylum  right  to  the  poor  and  oppressed  of  other 
lands,  the  great  mission  of  our  country  will  be  at 
an  end  —  her  boasted  superior  civilization,  have 
vanished. 

And  yet  this  charitable  mission  is  at  the  expense 
of  the  laboring  class.  The  protected  manufac- 
turer takes  advantage  of  our  humanitarian  policy 
for  his  self-aggrandizement;  for,  were  immigra- 
tion restricted,  the  advantages  coming  to  him  under 
present  laws  would  cease.  Our  labor  unions 
would  practically  be  closed  corporations,  and  all 
manufacturers,  be  at  our  mercy. 

Here  I  recall  to  mind  the  term  of  endearment, 
capitalists  quite  generally  apply  to  labor  unions, 
naniely,  labor  trusts.  Having  earned  the  condem- 
nation and  nausea  of  the  public  through  narrow- 
sighted,  injudicious,  and  distasteful  measures  they 
seek  to  mollify  their  reputation  by  cloaking  labor- 
unions  with  a  trust  mantle.     It  is  the  same  old 


54  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

cry  of  "stop,  thief" —  for  the  purpose  of  distracting 
attention  from  their  own  iniquity  they  classify  our 
organization  with  their  own,  although  they  are 
least  inclined  to  ordain  it  to  equal  fellowship  in  the 
society  of  trusts.  If  labor  unions  are  trusts,  they 
are  not  serious  and  can  never  be  a  menace  to  the 
public,  because,  ist.  They  are  not  closed  corpor- 
ations based  on  a  monopoly  —  millions  of  new 
independent  bread-winners  arise  annually  and 
threaten  its  existence.  2nd.  They  are  not  based 
on  inanimate  property,  but  on  the  passions  of  men; 
and  so  the  effectiveness  of  their  organizations  must 
continually  be  endangered  by  hunger  and  starva- 
tion within,  and  the  corruption  and  bribery  with- 
out. 3rd.  If  nine-tenths  of  our  people  combine 
to  raise  the  prices  of  labor  they  increase  the  cost  of 
production  as  well ;  and  by  the  amount  they 
increase  the  cost  of  production  they  add  a  consum- 
ing market  through  increased  wages. 

The  real  trouble  in  trust  formation  is  that  one- 
thousandth  part  of  mankind  combine  capital  to 
raise  the  price  of  their  production  to  the  remain- 
ing nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  one-thousandths 
part,  without  increasing  the  consumptive  powers  of 
anyone  but  themselves.     The  labor  trust  never  can 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  55 

hurt,  the  capital  trust  can.  The  former  is  detri- 
mental only  when  not  sufficiently  organized  or 
complete.  The  union  of  a  few  thousand  of  labor- 
ers may  injure  the  bulk  of  society;  the  union  of 
millions,  the  great  majority,  never. 

Now,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  in  what  relation- 
ship does  the  gentleman  in  discussion  stand? 
What  attitude  does  he  assume  towards  this  hope 
and  ideal  of  labor?  His  services  have  ever  been, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  are  still  employed,  not  in 
lengthening  the  avenues  of  trade,  but  in  shorten- 
ing them;  not  in  augmenting  man's  power  over 
things,  but  in  the  power  of  things  over  man.  He 
has  ever  been  an  organizer,  not  a  producer.  His 
policy  serves  to  destroy  competition  in  production, 
competition  in  consumption,  and  necessitates  a 
larger  competition  among  men  in  the  sale  of  their 
labor.  Today  in  certain  branches  of  industry 
man  must  sell  to  him,  must  buy  of  him,  must  humil- 
iatingly  submit  his  services  to  him.  The  purpose 
of  his  organization  has  been  the  saving  of  waste  — 
the  waste  of  things,  the  waste  of  money,  the  waste 
of  wages,  and  the  waste  of  strikes.  But  the  waste 
of  strikes  is  effected  only  by  increasing  the  employ- 


56  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

er's  power  over  his  employees,  by  increasing  com- 
petition among  them,  by  making  isolated  groups  of 
men  in  different  sections  of  the  country  dependent 
on  the  will  of  one  company,  by  playing  off  the 
wants  of  one  body  of  men  against  the  needs  of 
another,  by  operating  one  branch  while  the  other 
deals  its  ghastly  and  death-dealing  blows  to  the 
aspirations  of  loving,  living  souls.  The  slow  but 
sure  result  of  this  must  be  that  what  has  been 
gained  by  a  struggling  proletariate  in  two  hundred 
years  is  destined  to  be  lost  within  a  few  decades. 
Truly,  no  open  proposition  is  made  to  rob  the 
laborer  of  any  right,  but  clandestinely  and  insid- 
iously it  is  operating  to  reduce  him  to  his  former 
condition.  Even  worse,  for  feudal  lords  recog- 
nized duties  to  their  serfs,  while  modern  barons 
claim  many  rights,  and  deny  any  involving  duty  or 
responsibility. 

This,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  is  the  creeping 
effect  of  trust  formations.  If  John  D.  Rockefel- 
ler's time  were  employed  in  increasing  the  happi- 
ness of  man,  instead  of  laboring  for  the  domination 
of  things  over  the  destiny  of  man,  in  short,  did  he 
worship  less  at  the  shrine  of  money  and  more  at 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  57 

the  chapel  of  man,  I  should  vote  negatively  —  now 
I  must  vote  emphatically  in  the  affirmative. 

"It  is  only  by  labor  that  thought 
can  be  made  healthy,  and  only  by 
thought  that  labor  be  made  happy ; 
and  the  two  cannot  be  separated 
with  impunity." — Ruskin. 


"Was  du  ererbt  von  deinem  Vater 
hast  erwirb  es,  um  es  zu  besitzen." 
— Goethe's  Faust. 


REPUBLICAN 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  gentleman  preceding  me 
has  talked  about  everything  but  the  subject  at  hand. 
What  have  all  his  remarks  about  the  ascent  of  man 
to  do  with  the  question  of  Rockefeller's  retirement? 
Why  doesn't  he  stick  to  the  subject?  His  view- 
point is  very  narrow.  In  discussing  the  affairs  of 
Rockefeller,  we  are  concerned  with  a  very  promin- 
ent man  —  one  who  is  a  true,  representative  Amer- 
ican. We  may  not  make  him  the  target  of  criticism 
without  casting  odium  upon  the  whole  American 
people,  their  laws,  and  government.  And  when 
you,  gentlemen,  do  that,  do  you  know  what  that 
means?  Have  you  forgotten  the  story  of  our  great- 
ness? 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  59 

The  United  States  is  the  grandest  country,  the 
best  situated  in  the  world.  It  is  the  Elysian  Fields 
of  Grecian  Mythology,  the  El  Dorado  of  the 
present  reality.  On  the  north  lies  the  largest  fresh 
water  system  of  Lakes  on  the  Globe;  on  the  west 
we  are  protected  from  harsh  winds  and  weather 
by  the  longest  and  grandest  mountain  system  in 
the  world;  on  the  south  is  the  largest  warm  water 
sea,  the 'Gulf  of  Mexico,  radiating  its  balmy  influ- 
ence from  Newfoundland  to  Iceland  and  from 
England  to  Spain.  Within  our  confines  is  the 
Ohio,  Missouri,  and  Mississippi  river  system,  the 
faith,  hope,  and  charity  of  Uncle  Sam's  future  and 
of  the  world's  culture. 

Intellectually  we  excel  all  other  people.  Our 
youth  receive  mental  training  at  public  cost  more 
years  and  more  freely  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  More  money  is  spent  in  education  than  in 
any  two  European  countries  together.  Olir  col- 
leges are  more  numerous  than  the  combined  num- 
ber of  the  three  leading  powers  of  Europe.  They 
are  more  magnificently  endowed.  Indeed,  our 
real  universities,  the  newspapers,  the  positive  and 
indisputable  proof  of  our  superior  mental  activity, 
charge  the    least    tuition,    ofTfer  the  most    diverse 


6o  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

course  of  study,  and  enjoy  the  largest  attendance. 
Our  schools  are  our  "dailies,"  our  universities  are 
our  "dailies,"  our  country  is  our  "dailies."  They 
exceed  in  number  and  circulation  all  the  journals 
of  England,  France,  and  Germany  put  together. 
One-third  of  the  world's  newspapers  spread  their 
ramifying  tendrils  deep  in  the  rich  loam  of  the 
American  intellect  —  the  breath  that  speaks  of  the 
one  must  enunciate  the  other.  Our  freedom  of 
speech  and  conscience  is  the  ideal  of  the  youth  of 
every  land. 

Politically  speaking,  we  are  the  first  people 
under  the  heavens.  In  God's  chosen  land  man  has 
the  greatest  power  over  his  own  destiny.  He  has 
inherited  no  past;  his  future  lies  within  his  own 
hands.  His  elective  franchise  is  liberal  in  the 
extreme.  It  commences  early  in  manhood;  it 
extends  over  the  greatest  possible  number  of  peo- 
ple. It  clothes  with  its  charitable  folds  the  ignor- 
ant and  intelligent,  the  rich  and  poor,  the  young 
and  old,  the  virtuous  and  vicious,  theist  and  atheist, 
male  and  female  —  to  the  end  that  we  have  become 
the  most  liberal-minded  and  generous-hearted  peo- 
ple under  the  sun.     Only  in  our  land  is  the  maxim 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  6l 

fully  understood  and  appreciated,  "Man  can  have 
as  much  liberty  as  he  grants." 

Socially  speaking,  man  as  man  here  occupies  the 
highest  position  in  the  world.  No  class  or  caste  de- 
grades him;  nor  is  he  the  sport  or  foot-stool  of  roy- 
alty. And  with  man,  woman  has  marched  hand  in 
hand  —  his  advancement  has  shed  lustre  upon  her 
companionship.  America  is  the  land  of  conjugal 
felicity.  In  the  year  1902  the  comparative  number 
of  marriages  to  10,000  inhabitants  was  as  follows: 
United  States  97,  Germany  79,  France  76,  Great 
Britain  75,  Italy  73,  Austria  78.  And  why  should 
the  American  woman  not  head  the  list  in  marriage- 
ability? She  is  the  most  beautiful  and  intellectual 
in  the  world,  the  queen  of  all  womanly  virtues;  all 
mankind  concedes  her  supremacy.  The  American 
fireside  and  family  is  the  dream  of  all  Europeans. 

The  benevolent  service  we  have  rendered  to  the 
cause  of  humanity  will  forever  remain  the  pole  star 
in  the  galaxy  of  heavens.  Its  radiancy  can  only 
become  brighter  with  the  march  of  time.  Our 
country  has  been  and  is  today  the  asylum  of  the 
despised,  degraded,  and  oppressed  of  every  land. 
About  33*^°  of  our  population  is  foreign  born,  or  of 
foreign  born  parentage,  in  whole  or  in  part.    These 


62  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

26,000,000  are  our  leaders  of  thought  and  action. 
Being  energetic,  adventuresome,  progressive,  emi- 
grants leave  their  foreign  lands  in  the  hands  of 
the  unprogressive  and  indifferent  sloths.  Here 
they  become  the  vanguard  of  physical  and  ethical 
culture.  Instead  of  our  high  civilization  signi- 
fying the  usual  degeneration  of  the  physical  state, 
WQ  prove  its  regeneration;  the  hardy,  venturesome, 
and  needy  —  the  physical  giants  of  foreign  lands  — 
develop  in  this  freer  atmosphere  to  perfect  man- 
hood —  the  state  of  physical,  ethical,  intellectual, 
and  religious  excellence. 

But  if  the  rapid  and  beneficent  assimilation  of 
immigrants  constitutes  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
leaves  in  our  wreath  of  fame,  our  benevolent  inter- 
vention in  behalf  of  alien  races  and  people  will 
ever  receive  the  applause  of  coming  ages.  When 
before  in  the  annals  of  history  has  a  people  had 
such  a  ferocious  death  struggle  for  its  very  exist- 
ence as  was  ours  in  contending  for  the  liberation 
of  the  negro  race  in  the  emancipation  war?  When 
has  a  nation  in  modern,  mediaeval,  or  ancient  times 
entered  on  the  terrors  of  war,  hazarded  reputation 
and  fortune  for  the  freedom  of  a  foreign  race  as  the 
American  people  did  in  the  Spanish  war?     It  is 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  63 

true  that  six  million  Philippines  have  not  yet  their 
full  independence.  Yet,  who  questions  the  speedy 
approach  of  their  perfect  freedom  and  absolute 
independence?  Wars,  more  severe,  more  terrible, 
more  cruel  abound,  indeed,  in  the  history  of  other 
lands;  blood  has  flown  more  freely  —  but  when 
were  they  not  for  self-aggrandizement?  for  power? 

Our  constitution  —  it  is  immortal;  it  has  scat- 
tered its  fructifying  seed  on  the  fertile  soil  of  every 
civilized  land.  The  forerunner  of  liberty  and 
equality,  the  inspirer  of  the  downtrodden  and  the 
fallen,  the  protector  of  the  weak  and  unfortunate, 
it  has  lifted  man  to  a  realizing  sense  of  his  divinity 
throughout  the  world.  It  is  the  developing  cause 
of  the  rise  of  mankind  —  the  highest  and  grandest 
letter  of  credit  that  any  nation  has  ever  presented  to 
posterity. 

Industrially,  no  nation  can  ever  compare  with 
our  grandeur.  Our  interstate  commerce  is  beyond 
the  wildest  dreams  of  foreigners.  It  exceeds  in 
value  the  combined  production  of  the  United  King- 
dom, France,  and  Germany.  Our  foreign  exports 
well  nigh  exceed  the  English  export  tonnage.  The 
American  laborer  receives  the  highest  wage,  works 
the  fewest  hours,  is  housed  under  the  most  sanitary 


64  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

conditions,  and  is  most  nourishingly  fed.  Our 
country  is  the  land  of  millionaires.  Their  wealth 
has  never  been  equalled,  even  in  the  days  of 
Croesus.  The  abundance  and  richness  of  our  tin, 
copper,  silver,  and  gold  mines  is  the  testimony  of 
divine  favor.  We  produce  more  coal  annually 
than  all  of  Continental  Europe  together;  and  more 
iron  than  any  of  them.  Our  national  harvest  sus- 
tains life  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic;  and  our 
cotton  enables  the  German,  the  Scotchman,  the 
Norvvegian  to  endure  the  rigor  of  their  climate. 
We  graciously  create  conditions  whereby  they  may 
compete  with  us  for  the  world's  markets. 

More  timber  goes  up  in  smoke  in  our  country 
than  any  European  nation  produces.  More  miles 
of  railroad  track  interlace  American  homogeneity 
than  are  operated  by  the  400,000,000  people  of 
Europe.  The  American  railway  mileage  consti- 
tutes approximately  one-half  of  the  whole  world's. 
The  American  locomotive  is  the  biggest,  fastest, 
and  pulls  the  heaviest  trains.  More  tonnage  is 
moved  on  American  railways  than  is  carried  by  all 
the  international  ships  of  the  world. 

And  yet  we  have  but  arrived  on  the  threshold  of 
our  commercial  importance.     We  are  destined  to 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  65 

supply  the  world's  markets  not  only  agriculturally, 
but  also  industrially.  Even  now  we  send  automo- 
biles to  France,  coal  to  Germany,  and  rails  to  Eng- 
land. Once  the  full  vigor  and  energy  of  our 
people  are  aroused  they  will  know  no  end  until  the 
whole  world's  markets  are  in  our  control  —  the 
trail  of  international  ships  on  every  sea  must  point 
towards  our  shores. 

In  a  few  years  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  excel- 
lence and  superiority  of  our  navy  will  merit  and 
command  the  homage  and  respect  of  all  powers. 
Our  iron-clads  will  enforce  order  and  law  in  every 
harbor.  We  will  enthrone  love  where  force  now 
reigns  supreme.  We  will  fashion  the  thought  of 
the  world.  Who  would  not  be  an  American? 
Our  greatness  at  once  creates  contempt  for  the 
insignificance  of  others.  Our  country  is  the  sun 
about  which  European  satellites  now  and  forever 
must  circle.  The  Gods  reside  above  our  shores, 
Their  power  is  reflected  in  our  glory  and  wealth. 
Their  favor  is  the  badge  of  our  divinity.  Their 
farmyards  and  cattle  ranch,  their  workshop  and 
gold  mine  bear  the  stamp  of  U.  S.,  the  "Unione 
Sacre."     The  stars  and  stripes  is  their  emblem. 

Mr.  Democrat:  —  Mr.  Chairman  —  I  call  the 


66  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

gentleman  to  order.       He  is  not  speaking  to  the 
question. 

Mr.  Republican'.  — That  shows  that  the  gentle- 
man does  not  correctly  understand  the  question  in 
all  its  bearings.  This  question  of  Rockefeller's 
retirement  can  not  be  discussed  without  looking 
through  the  windows  of  our  present  and  past  glory. 
They  alone  mirror  our  future.  Our  land  is  a  big 
country;  our  era  that  of  big  corporations  and  big 
men.  By  and  through  these  corporations  and  men, 
and  under  beneficent  laws  we  have  attained  our 
present  greatness.  While  other  countries  are  suf- 
fering from  commercial  disease,  industrial  prostra- 
tion, and  wasting  famines,  we  have  been  spared 
therefrom.  But  for  the  world-wide  international 
panic  of  1873  ^^^  have  had  no  business  distress  of 
any  importance  except  in  1893,  ^^^  ^^^^  ^"^^^  due 
to  fear  of  democratic  success.  Business  has  be- 
come tempered  and  sane.  All  this,  my  friends, 
through  a  system  of  large  corporations  which  reg- 
ulate trade  and  commerce.  They  save  the  waste 
of  over-supply  and  under-consumption.  When 
there  is  an  over-supply,  they  raise  prices  or  cease 
producing;  when  under-consumption  is  the  busi- 
ness symptom,  they  reduce  prices.     They  are  the 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  67 

Steady,  reliable  brakes  on  the  insane,  irregular, 
spasmodic,  diseased,  business  conditions  of  the  past. 
Never  again  will  business  panics  visit  and  blight 
our  commercial  enterprise.  Never  again  will  the 
springs  of  industry  trickle  from  10  by  12  work- 
shops. 

Such,  then,  is  the  condition  of  trade  and  com- 
merce in  our  grand  country  today.  Are  you  not 
proud  of  it?  Would  you  change  it?  And  this, 
the  result  of  such  men  as  John  D.  Rockefeller! 
May  he  live  to  be  a  centenarian,  and  each  year  give 
him  added  vigor  and  strength  to  carry  out  the  bene- 
ficent, patriotic  work  God  has  so  graciously  fitted 
him  for!  While  he  works,  he  is  an  asset  to  the 
American  people,  far  beyond  his  personal  acquisi- 
tion. Let  well  enough  alone!  I  vote  "No,"  but 
before  taking  my  chair  I  move  that  a  quartette 
which  I  have  hired  for  the  hour  be  invited  in  to 
sing  their  new  song  entitled  "The  G.  O.  P." 

Chairman: — If  there  be  no  objection? 

A  Voice: — I  object. 

Chairman : — Then  I  will  put  it  to  a  vote.  Those 
in  favor  will  rise.  (All  rise  but  Mr.  Banker  and 
Mr.  Artist).  It  is  carried.  The  Quartette  is 
invited,  enter  and  sing:     "The  G.  O.  P.,"  "In  the 


68  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

Good  Old  Summer  Time,"  "Let  Well  Enough 
Alone,"  "Prosperity  is  Coming,"  and  are  then  dis- 
missed. 


"Sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State! 

Sail  on,  O  Union,  strong  and  great ! 
Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  the  hopes  of  future  years, 

Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate!" 
— Longfellow. 


"The  wise  man  should  seek  not 
pleasures  of  the  moment,  but  last- 
ing joys."  — Aristippus. 

ARTIST 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

As  all  of  you,  gentlemen,  look  at  this  question 
from  your  own,  biased  standpoints,  I  need  not 
apologize  in  presenting  the  views  of  my  fraternity. 
Our  class  is  one  of  the  very  few  who  have  kept  their 
skirts  clean  of  the  sordid  things  of  this  world;  we 
dwell  only  in  the  realm  of  the  finer  sensibilities. 
The  worldly-minded,  the  great  masses  of  mankind, 
have  always  been  deficient  in  these  higher  things  of 
life;  hence,  but  for  aristocratic  support,  art  and 
esthetics  would  lapse  into  innocuous  desuetude,  as 
they  often  heretofore  have  done  in  the  world's 
history.  Accordingly  the  elite  and  magnanimous- 
ly-minded in  all  ages  and  countries  have  extended 


70  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

sympathy,  aid,  and  material  support,  to  the  end 
that  our  better  and  higher  nature  may  develop  and 
maintain  its  supremacy.  So  the  Medici  family 
made  Michael  Angelo;  Philip  the  Fourth,  Vales- 
quez;  Queen  Elizabeth,  Shakespeare;  and  King 
Ludwig,  Wagner. 

Now  that  we  have  chosen  a  republic  as  the  best 
form  of  government,  and  can  therefore  not  enjoy 
this  regal  support,  we  should  at  least  encourage 
private  fortunes;  only  thus  may  we  hope  for  that 
encouragement  and  patronage  of  art  here,  which  a 
titled  nobility  so  liberally  and  lavishly  bestow  in 
monarchic  Europe.  Consider,  for  instance,  the 
state  of  musical  culture  in  Germany  today!  What 
would  it  amount  to  if  it  did  not  receive  royal  sup- 
port? What  would  Germany's  rank  be  without  it? 
In  Berlin  the  annual  deficit  in  the  rendition  of 
grand  opera  amounted,  in  the  year  1903,  to  1,080,- 
000  Marks;  in  Dresden  to  480,000  Marks;  in 
Munich  to  600,000  Marks;  in  Wiesbaden  to  200,- 
000  Marks.  This  is  all  met  by  the  respective  kings. 

In  our  country  we  must  rely  upon  the  rich  and 
generous.  We  must  have  Rockefellers  and  Car- 
negies  if  we  would  compete  in  the  field  of  literature 
and  art.     Rockefeller,  alone,  annually  contributes 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  71 

more  for  the  development  of  art  and  education  than 
all  the  kings  of  Europe  put  together;  and  if  I  am 
any  judge,  I  prophesy  he  will  give  much  more 
before  he  takes  his  seat  in  Charon's  boat.  I  want 
to  see  my  country  great,  not  only  in  industrial  and 
political  fields,  but  also  in  the  artistic  world. 
I  vote  "No." 

"Art  is  long,  life  short." — Latin 
Proverb. 


"When  it  is  remembered  that  ,  . 
.  .  morality  and  struggle,  and  even 
religion  and  struggle,  are  bound  so 
closely  that  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive of  them  apart,  the  tremend- 
ous value  of  this  principle,  and  the 
necessity  for  providing  it  with  in- 
destructible foundations,  will  be 
perceived." — "The  Ascent  of  Man" 
— Drummond. 


DEMOCRAT 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Fellow-Citizens: — 

I  am  glad  to  be  here  —  glad  to  hear  so  many 
sides  of  this  question  discussed  by  honest  and  earn- 
est men  —  men,  having  not  their  own  personal 
interests  most  directly  before  them,  but  the  welfare 
of  the  State. 

Of  course,  this  question  of  Rockefeller's  retire- 
ment is  not  a  personal  one.  It  is  what  he  stands 
for,  what  he  represents  in  social,  political,  and 
economic  life,  that  interests  us,  and  that  only.  That 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  JT, 

he  will  continue  to  devote  himself  in  the  future  in 
the  same  manner  and  along  the  same  lines,  in  which 
he  has  so  well  succeeded  in  the  past,  we  have  a 
right  to  assume.  But  his  activities  in  the  past  have 
been  directed  towards  the  formation  of  gigantic 
corporations,  which  we  now  generally  term  trusts. 
From  no  point  of  view  can  these  organizations  be 
justified.  They  sterilize  invention,  smother  initia- 
tive, impoverish  national  and  individual  wealth. 
They  are  the  witchcraft  of  our  enlightenment,  the 
slave-masters  of  modern  times;  their  methods,  the 
thumb-screw  and  rack  of  mediaeval  days.  Their 
power  far  exceeds  that  recorded  of  the  publicans 
of  ancient  Rome,  the  Zemindars  of  India,  the 
Robber  Barons  of  the  Rhine,  or  the  Tax  Collectors 
of  France  in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Their  methods  are  more  objectionable  —  under  the 
mantle  of  benevolence  and  charity  they  deliver 
death-deals  and  starvation-blows.  They  usurp 
the  powers  of  government  through  the  imposition 
of  indirect  taxes.  Nothing  is  more  destructive  of 
the  sovereignty  of  man  in  free  institutions.  Pluck- 
ing the  goose  with  the  least  squawking  is  a  mon- 
archical measure;  the  presentation  of  an  itemized 
account,  a  bill  of  proposed  expenses  to  a  taxpayer 


74  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

is  republican  doctrine.  Yet,  which  taxpayer  can 
tell  today,  how  much  he  pays  to  the  government, 
and  how  much  to  trust  magnates?  How  much  of 
the  price  of  things  is  real  value,  and  how  much  is 
trust  legislation;  how  much  is  competitive  value, 
and  how  much  monopolized  right  and  privilege? 
I  have  not  one  word  of  criticism  of  those  large 
corporations  which  acquire  their  prestige  and 
power  solely  by  reason  of  their  great  capital.  These 
should  be  exempt  from  abuse  and  calumniation. 
But  I  would  abolish  all  those  gigantic,  modern 
dragons  which,  generally  by  false  pretenses,  obtain 
some  special  rights  through  legislation  or  fran- 
chise; or  which  because  of  the  permanence  of  land 
titles,  are,  or  are  destined  soon  to  become,  private 
monopolies.  The  former  corporations  are  harmless 
affairs,  can  never  become  monopolistic  until  they 
recognize  the  principle  upon  which  the  latter  are 
based  — which  they  generally  do  very  early  in 
their  career.  Public  franchises,  tariffs,  bounties, 
subsidies,  perpetual  titles  in  land  —  behind  these 
stand  regiments  of  police  and  corps  of  armies  to 
enforce  the  demand  of  the  few  for  the  delivery  and 
surrender  of  the  property  of  the  many.  It  is  in 
proportion  as  this  right  of  hold-up  is  clearly  de- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  75 

fined  and  permanent  in  its  nature,  that  the  stock 
of  such  trusts  has  value. 

Suppose,  that  instead  of  these  tarififs  running 
for  indeterminate  time,  the  enactment  should  pro- 
vide for  their  termination  in  ten  or  twenty  years  — 
do  you  think  these  giant  corporations  ever  would 
have  been  organized?  They  have  been  effected 
on  the  theory  of  a  perpetual  right  of  exaction,  on 
the  continuity  of  the  present  favoritism. 

The  capital  stock  of  the  sixty  largest  trusts 
amounts  to  about  $5,000,000,000;  the  rest  of  them 
and  the  smaller  fellows  would  aggregate  a  like 
sum,  irrespective  of  their  issued  bonds  which  gen- 
erally equal  and  in  some  cases  exceed  the  real  value 
of  their  property.  Repeal  the  tariff  and  thereby 
at  least  $5,000,000,000  of  these  stocks  has  vapor- 
ized. 

The  American  steam  and  street  railroads  are 
capitalized  for  about  $7,000,000,000  stock  and 
$7,500,000,000  bonds.  All  experts  agree  that  the 
cost  of  an  entirely  new  equipment  today  would  not 
exceed  their  issued  bonds.  Thus,  by  withdrawing 
their  franchise,  or  by  rendering  them  terminable 
periodically  at  short  intervals,  and  by  subsequently 
nationalizing  them  —  paying  them,  of  course,  only 


"6  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  real  worth  of  their  movable  property  —  at  least 
$7,000,000,000  more  of  paper  capital  would  be 
consigned  to  the  waste  basket. 

Tax  corporations  on  the  theory  that  their  capital 
stock  represents  the  real  value  of  their  property, 
and  all  the  gold,  silver,  copper,  tin,  coal,  and  iron 
mines  would  become  mere  holes  in  the  ground; 
their  personal  property  severed  from  the  land 
would  not  pay  ten  cents  on  the  dollar  of  their 
obligations.  Thus  at  least  $2,000,000,000  more  of 
so-called  wealth  has  taken  wings. 

Tax  land  values  only,  relieve  thrift  and  industry 
of  its  burden,  and  not  only  the  above  cited  $14,000,- 
000,000  of  capital  stock,  but  $20,000,000,000,  more 
(of  so-called  w^ealth  in  land  will  become  social. 
J4  Billions  of  wealth  vanishes/  J4  Billions  of 
''Hold  up"  power  repealed!  Think  of  it!  Whither 
has  it  gone?  What  has  become  of  it?  Who  has 
gotten  the  benefit  of  it?  The  Aynerican  people  as 
a  whole  would  be  its  proud  inheritors;  not  I,  nor 
you,  but  all  of  us.  More  dollars  would  not  fall  to 
our  lot,  but  more  rights  and  opportunities  would  be 
redeemed.  What  is  now  regarded  as  private, 
individual  wealth,  would  be  socialized.  Wealth 
thereafter  would  consist  in  the  product  of  man's 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  JJ 

energy,  and  not  a  coon  in  a  cornfield.  In  all  the 
cases  cited  above,  wealth  consists  in  the  capitaliza- 
tion (usually  at  six  per  cent)  of  the  power  of  levy- 
ing tribute,  from  now  until  eternity,  upon  the 
present  and  future  uses  to  which  an  ingenious, 
active,  and  energetic  people  might  put  the  land. 
It  is  all  right  for  the  possessors,  but  all  wrong  for 
the  three-quarters  dispossessed,  and  their  heirs 
forever. 

Destroy  the  perpetuity  of  land  titles,  and  let 
them  run  loo  or  50  or  25  or  5  years,  as  is  the 
practice  in  some  countries,  and  accordingly  the 
kite  of  wealth  is  disinflated  and  drops  to  the  earth; 
conversely,  increase  the  taxes  on  consumption, 
namely,  customs  and  internal  revenue,  high  enough 
to  exempt  land  and  personal  property  from  taxa- 
tion, and  instantly  billions  of  dollars  are  added  to 
the  credit  ledger  of  landowners  and  business  ven- 
tures based  thereon,  and  transferred  to  the  backs 
of  the  landless.  Man  thereby  becomes  cheap,  and 
land  valuable ;  or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  man  becomes 
the  slave  and  tool  of  land  instead  of  its  being  his 
instrument.  On  the  other  hand,  remove  all  indirect 
taxes  on  man,  and  impose  them  all  on  land,  and 
man  becomes  important,    independent,  and    land. 


yS  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

cheap  —  to  put  it  otherwise,  man  becomes  the  mas- 
ter of  land,  a  real  sovereign  on  God's  earth.  Don't 
you  see  that  the  present  worth  of  land,  or  selling 
price  (or  capital  stock),  rises  with  the  guaranty  of 
the  permanency  of  land  ow^nership,  and  with  the 
growing  immunity  from  taxation?  Threaten  to 
amend,  modify,  or  repeal  this  legal  favoritism  of 
land  (for  so  we  must  denounce  all  indirect  taxes) 
or  endanger  its  right  of  exaction,  for  example,  by 
permitting  only  certain  kinds  of  buildings,  by  lim- 
iting their  height,  making  the  rental  and  ouster  in 
all  cases  dependent  on  a  court  of  law,  etc.,  as  is  done 
in  many  countries  —  destroy  this  absolutism  of  the 
landlord,  remove  these  fortifications  behind  legal- 
ized monopoly,  and  the  result,  in  diminished  value 
of  land,  would  convince  the  most  skeptical  that  this 
wealth  is  law,  pure  law,  the  fiat  of  government  — 
as  surely  as  is  our  national  currency. 

Sanctified  by  its  antiquity,  the  immorality  of  our 
land  tenure  system  is  little  appreciated  by  the  aver- 
age mind.  The  laws  with  reference  to  its  purchase, 
sale,  inheritance,  and  testation  are  so  precise  and 
exact;  its  care  requires  so  little  attention;  it  cannot 
abscond;  its  management  involves  a  minimum  of 
loss;  it  is  secure  from  the  dangers  of  competition 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  79 

and  industrial  legislation,  etc.  —  all  these  give  to 
the  landed  institution  such  great  advantages  over 
industry,  as  to  fully  explain  the  preference  of  the 
rich  and  idle  to  this  character  of  investment. 

Law,  then,  is  seen  as  the  atmosphere  operating 
the  mercurial  wealth  in  the  social  barometer.  Law 
makes  it,  and  law  can  destroy  it.  It  rises  and  falls 
respectively  with  the  election  of  dishonest  or  honest 
officials,  legislators,  and  judges.  As  the  Golden 
Rule  becomes  graven  on  the  hearts  of  officials,  the 
prices  of  land,  and  trust  stocks  based  thereon,  fall ; 
these  values  depend  entirely  on  their  honesty  and 
morality.  An  indififerent  people  makes  these  cor- 
porations wealthy;  a  moral  and  just  people  renders 
their  wealth  ephemeral  and  evanescent.  Indeed, 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years,  the  idea  of  wealth 
has  suffered  an  unmistakable  change  of  meaning. 
Formerly  it  consisted  in  a  stout  heart,  a  strong  arm, 
and  a  healthy  stomach  —  the  ability  to  do  and  to 
dare.  Today  it  is  mere  cunning,  the  cunning  to 
avoid  competition,  to  make  somebody  unknowing- 
ly pay  us  tribute,  the  right  of  one  man  to  demand 
of  another  more  than  he  should  be  able  to  in  justice 
or  competition. 

Competition  for  one,  competition  for  all ;  mon- 


8o  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

opoly  for  one,  monopoly  for  all  —  that,  my  friends, 
is  my  position  in  a  nut-shell.  If  you  understand 
that  in  its  widest  sense,  I  need  consume  no  more  of 
your  valuable  time.  A  free  field  and  a  fair  fight. 
Do  you  know  the  significance  of  that?  It  means  the 
abolishment  of  perpetual  rights  in  land,  private 
railroads,  protection,  bounties,  and  subsidies.  It 
means  the  release  of  one-half  of  our  police,  a  reduc- 
tion of  our  army;  in  short,  it  means  that  man  is 
free  to  work  out  his  own  destiny,  and  not  born  in 
the  barn  of  perpetual  bondage  and  poverrv\  If 
monopolies  are  advisable,  let  them  be  granted 
openly  and  aboveboard.  Let  us  fix  the  price  of 
their  commodities  as  we  do  —  at  least  in  theory  — 
in  the  case  of  quasi-public  corporations;  let  us 
create  a  butter,  cheese,  eggs,  wheat,  cattle,  coal, 
etc.,  trust;  but  let  us  do  it  publicly  and  fix  the 
price  of  these  things  ourselves. 

Under  present  conditions  land  and  its  products, 
direct  and  indirect,  are  monopolized  with  the  con- 
nivance and  even  assistance  of  the  state.  Man's 
destiny  becomes  mortgaged  before  birth.  The 
amount  of  the  mortgage  is  limited  only  by  the 
number  of  the  mouths  and  stomachs  of  "les  miser- 
ables"  already  bidding  for  the  means  of  subsis- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  8l 

tence.     The  mortgage  runs  to  the  trustees  of  God, 
their  heirs  and  assigns  in  ease  and  luxury  forever. 

Mr.  Republican:  —  You're  a  Pessimist. 

Mr.  Democrat:  —  The  gentleman  says  I'm  a 
Pessimist.  Well,  perhaps  so.  And  may  I  add  that 
it  is.  my  cherished  hope  always  so  to  remain.  No 
vainglorious  boasting  will  ever  benumb  and  befud- 
dle my  senses,  while  slick  and  cunning  beneficiaries 
of  our  laws  are  plucking  my  pockets.  I  do  not 
want  to  forget  my  troubles  —  neither  do  the  Amer- 
ican people.  We  need  to  look  the  misdeeds  of 
our  fathers  square  in  the  face,  to  conquer  them. 
Optimism  is  death,  decay;  pessimism  is  idealism, 
growth,  a  forward  movement,  progression.  Op- 
timism is  for  those  who  have;  pessimism  is  for 
those  who  have  not.  Life  is  a  Drama  as  well  as 
a  Comedy.  Every  ideal  advanced  for  the 
improvement  of  society  has  been  denominated  pes- 
simism. Because  the  world  is  not  as  good  as  we 
would  have  it,  we  are  styled  pessimists.  Ts  such 
an  appellation  not  the  bestowal  of  honor?  Were 
not  Buddha  and  Confucius  and  Jesus  pessimists? 
Did  they  not  all  seek  the  improvement,  elevation, 
and  saving  of  the  world,  by  preaching  its  exist- 
ing debasement?     Were  the  proud   possessors  of 


82  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  spirit  of  '76  in  our  country,  and  of  the  patriot- 
ism of  '89  in  France,  not  pessimists?  Is  it  not 
better,  as  J.  S.  Mill  affirms,  to  be  a  human  being 
dissatisfied,  than  a  pig  satisfied?  My  republican 
friend,  you  do  me  too  much  honor.  The  differ- 
ence between  you  and  me  is  that  you  glory  in  the 
deeds  of  our  fathers,  while  we  labor  for  the  glory 
of  our  sons ;  you  dwell  in  idle  memories  of  the  past, 
while  we  thrill  with  the  radiant  hopes  of  the 
future.  My  friends,  the  past  is  dead;  the  future, 
pregnant  with  undreamed  possibilities  of  eclipsing 
greatness  and  excelling  virtues.  Look  forward, 
not  backward;  upward,  not  downward;  inward, 
not  outward;  and  lend  a  hand.  Our  country  is 
not  its  "rocks  and  rills,"  nor  its  "woods  and  tem- 
pled hills" — -that's  the  pride  and  property  of  a 
few  individuals;  the  poverty  of  the  many.  The 
interest  of  the  state  amounts  to  about  2^°  per 
annum,  the  rate  of  taxation.  Our  country — it  is 
our  common  institutions,  the  mental,  moral,  and 
social  eminence  of  our  people,  the  whole  people. 

Here  I  call  to  mind  the  suggestion  of  a  member 
of  our  jury,  that  such  men  as  Rockefeller  encour- 
age art.  He  says  in  substance:  as  there  was  a 
Medici   family  to  patronize   Michael   Angelo,   a 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  83 

Queen  Elizabeth  to  elevate  a  Shakespeare,  a  King 
Ludvvig  to  encourage  Wagner,  so  we  must  have 
Rockefellers  in  our  land  to  patronize  and  give 
impetus  to  art.  I  am  afraid  our  friend  has  neither 
correctly  nor  broadly  read  the  connection  of  his- 
toric facts.  He  does  not  properly  interpret  the 
signs  of  the  times.  It  is  true  that  we  have  no 
Shakespeare  to  elevate  the  character  of  debased 
Kings  and  immoral  Queens.  We  have  no  com- 
poser of  music  presumptions  enough  to  compose 
operas  requiring  the  public  to  learn  a  new  alpha- 
bet of  musical  motives  to  appreciate  and  under- 
stand them.  Never  again  until  we  get  a  crazy 
King,  will  Richard  Wagners  invite  us  to  operas 
at  six  o'clock,  in  order  to  get  us  out  of  the  theatre 
at  midnight.  Yes,  it  is  true,  we  have  no  Wagner, 
but  in  lieu  thereof  one  hundred  Richard  Strausses! 
No  Frederic  the  Great,  but  one  thousand  George 
Washingtons!  No  Louis  the  XIV,  but  millions 
of  sovereigns!  Our  theatres  are  not  subsidized 
by  an  Emperor,  but  supported  by  an  appreciating 
public.  The  audience  and  not  the  King,  is  the 
censor  of  our  plays.  Our  actors,  unhampered  and 
unimpeded  by  official  interpretation,  become  the 
best  in  the  world.     Indeed,  we  may  say  that  the 


84  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

excellence  of  all  American  art  is  created  and  sus- 
tained by  a  democracy,  and  not  an  aristocracy. 

And  so  the  art  of  every  country  must  ever  be 
democratic  if  it  would  be  of  enduring  value. 
When  it  fails  to  embody  the  life  and  to  answer  the 
needs  of  the  masses  of  the  people,  it  becomes  devit- 
alized and  emasculated.  The  art  of  Greece  is  of 
the  age  of  the  great  democrat,  Pericles;  the  art  of 
Florence  and  Venice  of  their  republican  days;  the 
art  of  Holland  of  the  days  of  her  independence; 
and  today,  the  most  illustrious  era  of  art  in  every 
branch  and  field,  is  the  art  of  the  democracy  of 
man;  its  patron  is  the  free  mind,  the  rich  fruitage 
of  the  American  Independence  and  the  French 
Revolution.  No  longer  is  the  art  gallery  a  photo- 
graph gallery  of  the  vain,  insignificant,  and 
unknown  puppet  Kings,  Queens,  and  Princes,  and 
their  clandestine  relationships.  Today,  the  life  of 
mankind,  even  in  the  dirtiest  hovel,  is  interesting, 
instructive,  provocative  of  love  and  sympathy;  it 
is  as  fit  a  subject  for  art  as  the  flowing  and  resplen- 
dent robes  of  a  debauched  monarch.  In  architec- 
ture we  are  no  longer  limited  to  three  or  four 
styles;  as  many  prevail  as  there  are  free  artists  in 
this  branch.     In   music  no  man  sets   a  pace   for 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  85 

others  to  follow;  and  in  painting  as  many  styles 
exist  as  there  are  assertive  individualities.  But, 
if  this  is  the  condition  of  individualism  in  the  fine 
arts,  who  can  fail  to  see  the  absence  of  any  arro- 
gating royal  direction  in  the  industrial  arts  — -  a 
far  broader  field,  a  hundred-fold,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  aesthetics?  To  what  princely  favor  or 
courtly  direction  shall  we  ascribe  the  multiplica- 
tion of  material  things  and  the  grand  diffusion  of 
mental  activity?  To  whom  the  more  artistic, 
aesthetic,  and  spiritual  nature  of  our  people? 
Where  is  the  subsidy  of  the  American  newspaper, 
the  epitome  of  American  art? 

Who's  the  ducal  instigator  of  this  American 
intelligence?  Who,  the  writer  and  circulator  of 
the  American  letter?  Who,  the  reader  of  the  500,- 
000  edition  American  book?  Are  the  quicker 
pulsations  of  the  intellect,  the  increased  locomo- 
tion of  millions  of  minds  not  higher  art  than  the 
indulgence  of  the  passions  of  a  few  thousands  for 
a  few  moments  in  painting  and  sculpture?  The 
secrets  of  antiquity  are  known  better  to  us  than 
to  mankind  two  thousand  years  ago.  Babylon  and 
Assyria  are  radiating  their  lustrous  past  to  the 
voracious    and    devouring    intellect   of    our    age. 


86  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

The  history  of  Rome  is  better  written  today  than  by 
Tacitus  himself;  and  of  Egypt  we  know  more  than 
did  the  father  of  History,  Herodotus. 

The  freedom  of  man  and  mind  alone  explains 
these  leaps  and  bounds  of  the  intellect — I  might 
say,  not  only  of  cultured  man,  but  also  of  savage 
man  and  animal.  For,  has  not  the  barbarian 
become  a  civilizer,  and  are  not  even  tigers  and 
bears  tamed,  and  elephants  and  dogs  enlisted  in 
the  service  of  man? 

Whatever  interferes  with  the  free  play  of  man's 
fancy,  or  impedes  the  exercise  of  his  individual 
and  natural  inclinations,  mental  and  physical,  is  a 
limitation  of  his  growth,  freedom,  and  dignity. 
His  loss  may  be  another's  gain,  but  it  is  a  social 
loss.  Heroes  we  may  create,  but  thereby  we 
debase  a  thousand  heroic  men.  Court  painters  we 
may  apotheosize,  but  thereby  we  degrade  hundreds 
of  superior  artists.  Merit,  unimpeded,  alone,  and 
unsupported,  will  win  its  own  battle.  No  royal 
wavelets  of  art  will  ever  again  be  sustituted  for  the 
existing  grand  democratic  ocean-swells.  Never 
again  will  slavery  of  mind  or  body  be  assumed  as 
the  necessary  condition  of  intellectual  culture. 
The  stimulating  collision  of  millions  of  free  minds 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  87 

has  become,  and  will  forever  remain,  the  main- 
spring of  mental,  moral,  and  social  progress;  the 
repression  of  thought  soon  will  become  more 
criminal  than  the  spilling  of  human  blood. 

This,  then,  my  fellow-citizens,  is  the  story  of 
the  rise  of  man  and  of  the  decline  of  the  state;  of 
the  centralization  of  man  and  decentralization  of 
government.  It  is  the  unit  of  all  values.  All 
social  reform  must  be  measured  thereby.  Does 
it  augment  the  importance  of  the  individual,  or 
does  it  give  increased  power  to  the  State?  Does  it 
release  the  individual  from  care  and  responsibility, 
or  does  it  repose  in  him  the  existing  duties  of  the 
State?  Does  it  impute  to  the  government  higher 
morals  and  intelligence  than  the  average  individ- 
ual himself  possesses?  Is  paternalism  its  object, 
or  individualism?  As  these  are  answered  affirma- 
tively for  added  power,  responsibility,  and  enfran- 
chisement of  the  individual,  depends  his  future 
growth.  Tariffs,  bounties,  subsidies,  franchises, 
armies,  perpetual  rights  in  land,  private  property 
in  railroads,  all  these  are  the  creeping  ivies  about 
the  strength  and  vigor  and  independence  of  man- 
hood. Trusts  are  based  on,  and  seek  the  perpetu- 
ation of,  all  of  these  iniquities.     Restraint  of  pro- 


88  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

duction,  restraint  of  consumption,  restraint  of 
trade,  restraint  of  man  is  their  ideal.  The  humil- 
iation of  man  and  the  elevation  of  industrial  cap- 
tains, the  enthronement  of  monopoly  and  the 
dethronement  of  competition  —  this,  their  princi- 
ple, leads  to  centralization  of  government.  It 
w'\\\  end  in  monarchy,  whether  the  executive  be 
called  a  Greek  tyrant,  a  Roman  Caesar,  a  German 
Kaiser,  a  Russian  Czar,  or  an  American  Presi- 
dent. Indeed,  I  might  s.ay  that  modern  Emperors 
do  not  hold  offices.  They  are  our  captains  of 
industry.  They  fix  the  rate  and  amount  of  taxa- 
tion. They  sit  not  in  palaces,  nor  on  elevated 
thrones,  gilded  chairs,  clothed  in  robes  of  purple 
and  silk,  ornamented  with  gold  and  silver,  adored 
by  a  court  of  sycophants,  flunkies,  and  courtiers. 
No!  these  are  not  the  Emperors  of  the  day.  They 
sit  in  revolving  chairs,  before  a  mahogany  desk, 
surrounded  by  tubes,  phones,  and  tickers,  honored, 
revered,  and  worshipped  by  thousands  of  depen- 
dent employees,  and  count  the  tribute  which  mil- 
lions are  daily,  monthly,  and  yearly  ignorantly 
rendering  to  them. 

The  body,  politic,  social,  and  industrial,  shows 
many  diseases;  but  it  is  not  the  disease  of  compe- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  89 

tition.  State  and  institutional  enthrottlement  of 
competition  is  the  pest  and  plague  of  modern  times. 
When  these  shackles  are  once  removed  and  each 
man  has  a  free  field  and  a  fair  fight,  a  new  era, 
unknown  and  unrecorded  in  the  past,  will  dawn 
upon  mankind.  A  democracy  in  name  will 
become  so  in  fact.  The  freedom  of  person  and 
property,  and  the  equality  of  man  will  then  replace 
these  present  idle  terms.  Only  then,  when  com- 
petition really  is  free,  will  criticism  of  such  an 
institution  be  justified.  A  race  horse  can't  show 
his  speed  when  attached  to  a  lumber  wagon. 

Rockefeller's  great  powers  have  been  enlisted, 
in  the  past,  in  the  destruction  of  competition.  He 
is  the  pioneer  in  its  execution.  He  has  shown 
others  the  way;  they  are  simply  poor  imitators. 
Let  us  accredit  him  with  the  badge  of  his  great- 
ness by  voting  for  his  retirement. 


"The  real  democratic  American 
idea  is,  not  that  every  man  shall  be 
on  a  level  with  every  other,  but  that 
every  one  shall  have  liberty,  with- 
out hindrance,  to  be  what  God  made 
him."—//.  W.  Beecher. 


"The  happiness,  self-interest,  or 
individuality  of  the  whole,  is  not 
more  sacred  than  that  of  each,  but 
it  is  greater." — Lloyd. 

SOCIALIST 

My  Friends : — 

With  the  motive  of  the  gentleman  preceding 
me,  I  have  no  fault  to  find  —  his  heart  is  in  the 
right  place.  I  do  not  question  his  sincerity,  nor 
would  I  impugn  yours.  But  your  ideals  differ 
radically  from  mine.  Where  you,  gentlemen, 
seek  the  good  of  society  through  the  individual, 
we  seek  the  good  of  the  individual  through  society. 
What  you  designate  as  the  freedom  of  man,  we 
denounce  as  his  slavery.  What  you  boast  of  as  our 
wealth,  we  proclaim  as  our  poverty.  What  you 
apotheosize  as  the  freedom  of  contract,  we  denom- 
inate as  the  bond  of  the  white  slave.  While  you 
seek  the  multiplication  of  things  primarily,  and  the 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  91 

elevation  of  man  secondarily,  we  demand,  firstly, 
the  realization  of  man's  aspirations  as  man,  and 
secondly,  the  consideration  of  things,  as  related  to 
him.  Where  we  translate  things  in  terms  of  life,  you 
analyze  life  in  terms  of  things.  While  we  see  in 
man  a  heart  and  a  soul,  you  identify  him  with  a 
number.  "What  a  piece  of  work  is  man!  How 
noble  in  reason,  how  infinite  in  faculties!  In  ac- 
tion how  like  an  angel!  In  apprehension  how  like 
a  God!"  And  yet,  how  we  belittle  and  degrade 
him!  How  we  dissipate  his  energies  and  prosti- 
tute his  services!  His  manhood  is  dwarfed,  his 
strength  wasted,  his  opportunities  crippled  —  he  is 
condemned  to  a  life  of  drudgery  and  despair. 

The  gentleman  preceding  me  has  ably  presented 
the  views  of  a  large  class  of  our  people,  who  con- 
tend that  freer  competition  tends  to  liberate  man- 
kind from  its  present  masters.  But  we  maintain 
that  not  only  is  individual  monopoly  a  strangle- 
ment  of  the  progress  of  man  and  society,  but  that 
competition  is  even  more  destructive.  Our  indus- 
trial system  is  based  essentially  on  the  latter.  It 
has  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  Let  me  pause 
for  a  moment,  and  give  you  a  few  facts,  indicating 
the  condition  of  nine-tenths  of  mankind  today,  in 
the  most  civilized  and  enlightened  nations  of  Eu- 


92  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

rope  and  America  —  there,  where  the  competitive 
system  is  most  highly  prized  and  developed: 

In  England  the  total  cost  of  poor  law  relief  in 
1902  was  over  $55,000,000,  and  the  number  of 
paupers  receiving  public  aid  about  825,000.  Be- 
tween the  first  and  fourteenth  of  January,  1903, 
over  1,000,000  paupers  were  in  receipt  of  public 
relief  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Some  years  ago 
Charles  Booth  estimated  that  30^"  of  the  people 
residing  in  London  were  living  in  poverty.  He 
presented  statistics  showing  that  one  person  in 
every  four  in  London  dies  in  the  workhouse,  hos- 
pital, or  lunatic  asylum.  The  value  of  the  house 
accommodation  of  six-sevenths  of  the  population 
of  England,  equals  the  value  of  the  housing  of  the 
other  one-seventh.  These  six-sevenths  live  in  rooms 
for  which  they  pay  less  than  $100  rental  per  annum. 
In  Scotland,  nine-tenths  of  the  land  is  owned  by 
one  thousand  seven  hundred  persons;  while  in  the 
United  Kingdom  ten-elevenths  of  its  area  is  owned 
by  one  two-hundredth  part  of  the  population.  In 
England  one  person  in  twenty  is  an  owner  of  land; 
in  Scotland  one  in  twenty-five;  in  Ireland  one  in 
seventy-nine.  In  Germany  three  hundred  thous- 
and agriculturists  own  as  much  land  as  five  mil- 
lion do.     And  in  our  boasted  land  of  prosperity 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  93 

and  plenty,  more  people  depend,  today,  upon  the 
graciousness  and  generosity  of  others,  than  ever 
before;  charity  feeds  more  people  than  did  degen- 
erate Rome.  Never  were  there  more  soup  houses, 
charitable  institutions,  hospitals,  workhouses,  pen- 
itentiaries, and  prisons;  never  were  they  more 
numerously  filled.  Unemployment,  the  condition 
of  tramps  and  idlers,  is  on  the  increase.  The  U. 
S.  Census  statistics  of  1900  show  a  decrease  of 
employment  of  labor  in  all  but  15  out  of  140  groups 
or  classes.  Taking  only  occupations  wherein  over 
100,000  males  are  employed  the  last  census  report 
indicates  the  following  per  cent  of  partial  unem- 
ployment in  the  census  year,  1900,  compared  with 
1890: 

No.  of  employees  1900  1890 

Blacksmiths   226.000  13.7  12. i 

Iron  and  Steel  Workers 287,000  28.1  25.4 

Machinists    282,000  13.4  10.8 

Boot  and  Shoe  Makers 169,000  31.7  25.2 

Saw  and  Planing^  Mill 161.000  35.1  31.7 

Printers,  Lithographers,  etc 139,000  15.0  9.6 

Cotton  Mill  Operators 125,000  13.1  13.2 

Tailors    t  60.000  27.0  14.5 

Engineers  and  Firemen 239,000  6.8  6.1 

Agricultural  laborers 1,352,000  36.1  17.2 

Farmers,  Planters,  etc 415,000  y.y  6.6 

Draymen,  TTackmen 103.000  19.3  13.9 

Painters,  Glaziers 116,000  42.4  31. i 

Miners,  Quarrymen 249,000  44.3  47.9 


94  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

«So  it  seems  that  in  all  the  larger  fields  of  activity, 
excepting  the  cotton  mill  and  mining  industries, 
the  per  cent  of  non-employment,  the  number  of  un- 
occupied days,  of  enforced  idleness,  has  increased. 
The  tramp  is  as  truly  a  symptom  of  our  social  dis- 
ease as  the  machine  is  the  indicator  of  our  com- 
mercial age. 

According  to  an  estimate  of  Robert  Hunters, 
based  on  several  years'  experience  in  charity  and 
settlement  work  in  Chicago  and  New  York,  at  least 
ten  million  of  our  people  were  in  a  state  of  acute 
poverty  in  the  year  1904.  He  shows  in  his  book 
entitled  "Poverty,"  that,  in  1899,  18^"  of  the  people 
of  New  York  State  were  recipients  of  public  or 
private  charity;  that,  in  1903,  20*^"  of  the  people 
in  Boston  were  in  distress;  that  in  the  same  year, 
14*^"  of  the  families  of  Manhattan  were  evicted; 
and  that  every  year,  about  lo"^"  of  those  who  died 
in  Manhattan,  had  pauper  burials.  Thomas  G. 
Shearman  shows  that  one-half  of  all  values  in  land 
in  the  United  States  is  owned  by  i°^°  of  the  popula- 
tion, and^  that  95*^°  of  all  values  is  owned  by 
10^"  of  the  population;  that  only  a  quarter  of  the 
families  in  cities  own  land.  In  New  York  City 
80^''  of  the  people  live  in  tenements,  and,  taking 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  95 

country  and  city  together,  only  31. 8*^"  of  the  homes 
are  unencumbered;  but  one  person  in  eighteen  can 
boast:  "My  home  is  my  castle."  Only  one  person 
in  ten  claims  a  home,  unencumbered  or  free. 

The  ratio  of  insane  to  population  has  steadily 
increased  since  i860  in  all  industrial  lands  under 
the  competitive  system;  likewise  physical  disease. 
Crime  is  on  the  increase.  In  Chicago,  in  the 
month  of  February,  1906,  90  men  were  sitting  in 
jail,  awaiting  trial  for  murder,  while  1,100 
indicted  for  lesser  crimes  were  walking  the  streets. 
Ofifenses  against  property  increase  not  only  abso- 
lutely in  number,  but  also  relatively.  The  offenses 
"against  property,"  without  any  element  of  vio- 
lence, constitute  about  50^^^  of  the  total,  in  some 
countries  two-thirds. 

The  ratio  of  marriages  to  population  is  steadily 
decreasing  and  the  contracting  age  becoming  later; 
divorces  are  more  frequent  and  the  sexual  relation 
laxer.  The  institution  of  marriage  has  become 
polygamy  among  the  upper,  and  free  love  among 
the  lower  classes.  In  the  year  1900,  36,000  illegit- 
imate children  were  born  in  England;  in  France 
73,000,  in  Germany  183,000,  in  Austria-Hungary 
200,000. 


96  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

For  the  sake  of  gain,  we  are  becoming  a  nation 
of  cripples.  Those  who  can  withstand  this  fierce 
commercial  charge,  with  apparent  impunity,  be- 
come, nevertheless,  toeless,  toothless,  hairless,  and 
prematurely  aged;  or,  they  emerge  from  the  battle 
with  shattered  nerves  and  dyspeptic  stomachs.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  6"^^  of  the  men  offering 
themselves  for  army  service  in  all  these  countries 
are  physically  unfit  to  serve  as  soldiers. 

The  middle  class  is  disappearing,  the  number 
of  employers  decreasing,  and  the  num.ber  of  em- 
ployees increasing.  In  Germany,  from  1882  to 
1895,  as  already  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Retailer,  the 
number  of  employers,  in  small  industries  employ- 
ing one  to  five  persons,  actually  decreased  2^",  not- 
withstanding an  enormous  increase  in  population, 
while  the  number  of  laborers  in  industries,  employ- 
ing over  fifty  persons,  increased  87*^°. 

In  1895  twenty- five  per  cent  of  all  employees 
were  of  the  female  sex  in  Germany.  About  the 
same  proportion  maintains  in  England.  In  our 
country,  while  only  14^^  of  all  employees  are 
women,  this  auxilliary  army,  both  relatively  and 
absolutely,  is  steadily  growing.  In  the  struggle 
against  capitalism,  men  find  it  more  and  more  nee- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  97 

essary  to   enlist   the   services   of   their  wives   and 
daughters. 

The  English  Royal  Commission  on  Labor  in 
1883  investigating  the  number  of  people  engaged 
in  gainful  occupation,  found  that,  in  the  year  1880, 
1,118,356  children  under  the  age  of  15  years  were 
employed  in  the  United  States.  The  state  of  Ohio 
in  the  year  1905  had  over  100,000  of  such  manu- 
mitted infants.  With  the  development  of  com- 
mercialism this  number  has  absolutely  and  rela- 
tively increased.  How,  indeed,  could  it  be  other- 
wise in  a  country  where  the  national  ideals  stamp 
poverty  as  a  crime? 

Life  has  become  as  cheap  commercially,  as  it 
ever  was  politically  or  socially.  In  1902  labor's 
death  roll  in  England  was  4,513,  and  its  injured 
112,133.  Germany — -where,  through  govern- 
ment insurance  measures,  thorough  and  reliable 
statistics  are  at  hand  —  reports  for  the  year  1902, 
7,977  employees  killed,  and  121,284  injured.  The 
hundreds  of  thousands  dependent  on  these  for  sup- 
port, are  not  mentioned.  The  number  of  injured 
(not  invalids  or  aged  )on  the  accident  roll,  receiv- 
ing a  pension  during  said  year,  was  488,707. 
When  you  bear  in  mind  that  only  employees  earn- 


98  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ing  less  than  $150  per  annum,  are  covered  by  this 
compulsory  state  insurance,  that  of  Germany's  60,- 
000,000  population,  only  19,082,000  are  insured, 
some  idea  may  be  obtained  as  to  the  cancer  consum- 
ing the  vitals  of  our  social  order,  of  the  risk  to  life 
and  limb  man  incurs  in  providing  merely  bread 
and  butter  for  himself  and  family.  While  I  have 
not  the  statistics  of  our  own  country  at  hand,  our 
industrial  life  and  activity  being  more  intense  than 
elsewhere,  the  probability  is  that  these  figures 
should  be  doubled  for  the  80,000,000  people  on  this 
side  of  the  iVtlantic ;  that  one  million  cripples  attest 
to  the  high  state  of  our  superior  enlightenment. 
Our  loss  in  railroad  accidents  in  1904  alone 
exceeded  these  German  figures,  namely  12,299 
killed  and  137,916  wounded.  Frederick  L.  Hoff- 
man, of  the  Prudential  Insurance  Company,  re- 
cently estimated  that  the  annual  rate  of  accidents 
in  American  cities  is  between  80  and  85  in  each 
100,000.  On  a  basis  of  80,000,000  population, 
this  would  mean  a  yearly  loss  of  about  65,000  lives. 
He  calculates  that  1,664,000  persons  are  badly 
injured  each  year,  and  that  some  4,800,000  receive 
wounds  of  a  less  serious  character. 

This  the  record  of  the  dead  and  injured,  in  the 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  99 

battle  of  peace,  in  the  war  of  civilization!  How  it 
swells  the  list  of  widows  and  orphans,  the  number 
of  charges  on  society!  No  annual  pension  from 
the  government,  as  in  the  case  of  injury  in  war, 
is  their  lot;  but  the  poorhouse  and  the  contempt  of 
mankind  have  they  inherited  with  their  misfor- 
tune. Is  it  not  a  parody  on  our  sense  of  justice,  in 
this  enlightened  age,  that  death  and  disease  in  hol- 
lering for  "my  country,"  merits  and  secures  a  life 
pension,  while  that  incurred  in  laboring'  for  the 
securement  of  our  daily  bread,  destines  so  many  of 
our  families  to  workhouses,  poorhouses,  and  char- 
itable institutions? 

This  blasting  of  life,  this  maiming  of  body,  this 
prevalent  industrial  annihilation  is  a  terrible  in- 
dictment against  our  good  sense  and  reason,  against 
the  boasted  love  and  charity  of  our  age.  If  Rome, 
in  her  degenerate  days  estimated  life  cheaply,  it 
was  a  common  appraisement  of  the  rich  as  well  as 
the  poor,  the  high  as  well  as  the  lowly,  the  King 
as  well  as  the  subject.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  only 
the  life  of  the  poor  is  valueless. 

When  you  consider  the  number  of  killed, 
wounded,  and  diseased  resulting  from  this  strife, 
and  the  poverty  and  sickness  indirectly  entailed, 


lOO  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

you  will  agree  with  me  that  commercialism  today 
is  war  —  cruel  war,  far  more  barbarous  and  involv- 
ing much  more  bloodshed  than  international  strife 
has  ever  engendered.  It  is  a  daily,  monthly, 
annual,  perennial  war;  it  evolves  the  brute  instead 
of  man;  it  idealizes  force  instead  of  love.  It  is  a 
blot  on  the  bright  escutcheon  of  our  civilization, 
defacing  the  one  lustrous  star  of  our  future  hope 
and  destiny. 

The  figures  I  have  cited  challenge  compari- 
son in  all  time,  modern,  mediaeval,  and  ancient. 
Where  social  hatred  in  the  past  devastated  the 
ranks  of  aspiring  manhood,  it  is  now  the  battle  of 
labor.  No  Sedan,  or  even  Mukden,  has  ever  left 
so  many  cripples  and  skeletons  on  the  battlefield 
of  international  strife  as  does  this  peaceful  warfare 
of  labor  and  competition.  It  takes  but  a  few  years 
to  run  the  total  into  the  millions,  exclusive  of  the 
untold  numbers  of  the  diseased  and  decrepit  cast- 
offs. 

Neither  in  cultured  Greece,  nor  in  militant 
Rome,  can  a  parallel  be  found.  Slaves  were  then 
cheap,  but  labor  is  now  cheaper.  The  slave  is  no 
longer  forcibly  sold  and  compelled  to  labor;  but  a 
thousand  are  standing  within  beck  and  call  of  the 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  loi 

employer,  ready  to  sell  themselves  as  dead  rabbits 
in  a  market  stall.  The  laboring  classes  are  forced 
to  exterminate  one  another;  their  work  is  put  up 
at  auction.  Competition  among  them  is  regarded 
as  a  sacred  right  of  the  employer,  and  is  enforced 
by  the  sanctified  traditions  of  the  past,  and  all  the 
legal  institutions  of  the  day.  Armies  and  militia 
are  trained  and  invoked  more  to  despatch  this 
extermination,  than  for  the  purposes  of  defense  or 
ofifense  of  their  country. 

Negro  slavery  has  been  abolished  in  our  coun- 
try, but  thereby  industrial  slavery,  far  more 
immoral  and  degrading,  was  established.  The 
emancipation  proclamation  released  over  four  mil- 
lion souls  from  perpetual  bondage  to  man;  but  it 
never  freed  them  from  the  necessity  of  living  on 
their  master's  land.  The  master  has  now  capital- 
ized his  land,  and  offers  it  for  sale  to  his  former 
chattel.  The  price  depends  on  the  intensity  of  the 
black  man's  hunger,  the  productivity  of  his  labor, 
and  the  prolificness  of  his  body.  With  his  intel- 
lectual, moral,  social,  and  industrial  growth,  will 
rise  the  value  of  the  land.  This  will  then  be  called 
progress  and  civilization.  The  lash,  instead  of 
being  in  the  iron  grasp  of  a  slave-master,  is  in  the 


102  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

kid-gloved  hand  of  the  land  owner  —  the  driver 
has  remained  the  same. 

Man  has  become  a  machine,  operated  and  direc- 
ted by  an  indifferent  stranger;  after  a  few  years 
of  active  service,  it  becomes  a  burden  on  mankind 
—  even  second-hand,  out-worn,  rusted  machines 
will  bring  a  price  as  old  iron;  the  exploited  human 
frame  is  an  added  charge  upon  the  community, 
instead  of  being  a  source  of  wealth.  Truly,  man 
has,  during  the  last  century  or  so,  secured  in  the 
United  States  all  the  forms  of  freedom.  Educa- 
tion is  free,  political  rights  are  equal,  courts  are 
impartial,  religious  conscience  is  unhampered; 
schools,  parks,  roads,  fire,  police,  lighting — all 
are  as  free  as  the  waves  of  the  sea.  In  the  political 
field  no  sane  man  still  believes  that  some  are  born 
to  rule  and  others  to  obey;  in  the  social  field  it  is 
established  for  all  time  to  come  that  no  man  is 
inferior  because  of  race  or  color;  in  the  mental 
field  no  man  is  born  an  "intellectual;"  and  in  the 
moral  world  no  man  is  "white  as  snow."  In  all 
these  spheres  of  worldly  action  the  aristocratic  idea 
has  happily  suffered  a  final  defeat.  Only  in  the 
economic  field  does  it  still  prevail  and  thrive.  So 
long  as  only  a  few  people  own  all  our  land  —  the 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  103 

non  sine  qua,  the  source  of  all  production,  the  cor- 
ner-stone of  human  existence,  the  base  of  all  sup- 
plies —  the  economic  freedom  of  the  masses  is  a 
sham  and  delusion,  the  recited  liberties  slowly  but 
surely  become  abridged  and  abrogated.  For, 
when  a  man  is  not  free  to  work  out  even  a  bare 
existence  —  when  the  residuary  legacy  becomes 
the  poor-house  and  hospital  instead  of  his  muscle, 
energy,  and  a  chunk  of  land  —  his  "freedoms"  but 
mark  the  amount  and  size  of  the  mortgage,  and 
increase  the  rate  of  interest  payable  to  the  anointed 
devisees  of  God. 

In  the  slave  institutions  of  the  past  the  slave- 
owner had  many  rights,  but  they  were  correlated 
with  corresponding  duties  and  responsibilities. 
No  slave  then  labored  when  he  was  physically 
incapacitated,  or  when  his  duties  tended  to  dimin- 
ish his  future  value,  as  man  or  chattel.  And  is 
not  the  test  of  man's  greatness  the  treatment  and 
the  consideration  he  receives  or  may  command,  not 
only  in  days  of  prosperity,  but  also  in  years  of 
adversity?  Someone  to  watch  over  us,  someone  to 
guide  us,  someone  to  take  a  fatherly  interest  in  us 
—  is  that  not  true  wealth?  What  care  T  for  man's 
franchise,  for  his  assumed  independence,  for  his 


I04  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

liberty  of  person  and  property,  if  thereby  he  has 
lost  the  sympathy  and  respect  of  his  fellow-man  — 
if  wrinkles  of  care  efface  the  brow  of  contentment, 
and  days  of  anxiety  replace  hours  of  song. 

Navies  and  armies  are  organized,  battleships  and 
guns  constructed,  sheriffs  and  judges  elected,  to 
decide  whether  three  things  shall  be  the  sole  prop- 
erty of  A  or  whether  two  things  shall  represent  the 
pride  of  B.  While  the  law  punishes  premeditated 
murder,  it  condones  the  wasting  homicide  of  in- 
tense competition;  while  it  condemns  highway 
robbery,  it  encourages  artful  thieving  of  cunning 
merchants.  Stealthy  pocket-picking  is  an  offense 
against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  our  country,  while 
public  pocket-picking,  through  the  enactment  of 
outrageous  laws,  corruptly  and  fraudulently  se- 
cured, is  lauded  on  rostrum  and  in  pulpit. 

Not  only  does  competition,  as  the  basic  law  of 
trade,  corrupt  our  morals  and  blunt  our  senses  at 
home,  but  the  heresy  it  engenders,  namely,  that  it 
is  better  to  produce  more  than  we  consume,  has 
launched  us  forth  on  the  errand  of  imperialism, 
bullying  other  weaker  people  into  buying  our 
goods.  The  penalty  these  subjected,  inferior  races 
incur  in  denying  our  mandate,  is  their  subjection 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  105 

and  subordination  to  a  few  lazy,  idle  office-holders 
of  our  appointment;  or,  in  lieu  thereof,  such  sub- 
jugated people  are  obliged  to  issue  bonds  in  our 
favor,  whereby  war  is  deferred  until  defaultation 
of  the  interest.  Accordingly  we  must  have  large 
navies ;  for,  how  can  we  be  moral  custodians  and 
Christian  preceptors  without  the  use  of  a  "big 
stick"? 

Since  1885  Germany  has  expended  in  construc- 
tion and  maintenance  of  her  navy  about  $550,000,- 
000;  the  United  States  about  $800,000,000;  and 
Great  Britain  about  $1,400,000,000.  France,  and 
Russia,  and  Austria,  and  Italy  are  not  very  far 
behind  in  the  race;  and  each  year  records  a  faster 
pace,  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  growth  of  popu- 
lation. Are  civilized  people  civilized?  Are 
intelligent  people  intelligent?  Have  we  not  lost 
all  evidence  of  sanity?  Clearly  no  nation  will  go 
to  war  with  its  best  customer  in  this  commercial 
age.  Our  greatest  commerce  is  with  the  most 
friendly  nation;  the  trade  of  the  tropical  countries 
will  not  pay  for  the  trouble  of  governing  them; 
and  the  commercial  profit  with  the  poorest  would 
not  pay  the  cost  of  a  new  coat  of  paint  on  a  single 
ironclad.     This  is  the  experience  of  every  domin- 


io6  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

eering  power  with  every  dependency,  so  far  as  it 
is  really  dependent.  A  nation  becomes  successful 
in  imperialism  in  proportion  as  it  releases  its  rule 
over  the  subject  race  —  in  the  measure  of  republi- 
canism and  independence  it  bequeaths  to  its  sub- 
jects. 

Trade  and  empire  must  be  based  on  love.  We 
have  learned  our  lesson  in  the  Philippines.  Ger- 
many has  graduated  from  her  South  African 
school.  And  Great  Britain's  trade  with  Canada, 
which  she  most  wisely  does  not  govern,  exceeds  all 
that  of  her  eighteen  or  more  tropical  and  subtropi- 
cal dependencies  forcibly  acquired  between  the 
years  of  1884  and  1900.  Trade,  as  empire,  must 
be  maintained  as  it  is  acquired;  and  this  does  not 
pay,  except  it  be  through  love  and  sympathy,  the 
only  power  which  will  keep  the  "open  door"  per- 
manently open. 

Suppose  these  vast  sums  of  money  had  been  put 
at  interest  with  trustees  for  the  benefit  of  civiliza- 
tion! That  the  interest  had  been  expended  in 
humanizing  mankind!  That  it  had  been  used  in 
patching  the  wretched  holes  of  our  social  fabric! 
What  glory  would  be  ours!  What  honor  we  be- 
queath to  posterity!     In  its  stead  we  have  created 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  107 

wider  gulfs  in  society,  engendered  hatred  and  pes- 
simism among  the  masses,  and  expended  all  our 
surplus  energy  for  a  bronzed,  glittering  toy  —  a 
mere  plaything.  It  loses  its  lustre  almost  as  soon 
as  purchased ;  it  would  serve  the  masses  of  over- 
burdened and  over-taxed  best,  if  it  rested  on  the 
ocean  sands.  Acquired  ostensibly  for  defense, 
navies  have  ever  been  enlisted  for  offense.  When 
has  the  navy  of  England,  Germany  or  the  United 
States  been  used  for  any  other  purpose? 

How  to  equalize  opportunity,  minimize  the 
causes  of  poverty,  choke  up  the  sources  of  crime  — 
in  a  word,  how  to  realize  the  true  end  of  public 
and  private  ethics,  namely,  the  development  of  the 
'human  faculties  in  orderly  co-operation  —  such 
were  the  questions  in  which  the  best  minds  were 
absorbed  before  our  era  of  imperialism.  Ques- 
tions of  coinage,  of  international  arbitration,  of 
income  tax,  of  commerce,  of  shortened  hours  and 
better  conditions  of  labor,  of  military  curtailment, 
of  general  taxation  reform,  then  engaged  our  atten- 
tion. Now  the  inquiry  is  rather:  How  many 
black  traitors  did  Corporal  Rowdy  massacre  in  the 
battle  of  Cruel  Slaughter?  Or,  how  "justly"  and 
"honorably"  and  "nobly"  is  Lieutenant  Mercy  in- 


io8  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

stilling  leaden  civilization?  Or,  how  nearly  does 
Major  Dare-Anything  drown  our  charges,  without 
really  committing  them  to  a  watery  grave? 

No,  gentlemen,  if  any  difference  distinguishes 
the  ethics  of  civilized  from  that  of  primitive  man, 
it  is  in  the  freedom  and  rights  the  former  grants 
to  his  fellowman  and  to  all  mankind.  Even  the 
cannibal  recognizes  duties  to  his  wife,  his  children, 
his  family,  and  his  tribe.  Man  climbs  the  ladder 
of  progress  in  the  measure  that  he  grants  liberty, 
and  practices  toleration  first,  in  the  circle  of  his 
family,  then  to  the  members  of  his  tribe,  then  to 
the  fellow-citizens  of  his  state  —  then  to  all  man- 
kind of  the  v/hole  world.  How  can  we  read  his- 
tory otherwise? 

Our  competitive  system  must  cease.  It  has 
received  a  fair  and  honest  trial.  The  freedom  of 
competition  has  become  the  freedom  to  starve. 
Under  it  the  seats  at  the  banquet  table  of  civili- 
zation are  all  sold  in  advance  to  the  owners  of  the 
source  of  production;  the  poor  man  serves  at  the 
table,  administering  to  their  comfort  and  satiety, 
and  gets  the  remaining  crumbs  and  bones  for  his 
labor.  It  eliminates  from  consideration  the  one 
quality  that  distinguishes  man  from  all  other  or- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  109 

ganic  and  inorganic  matter.  Only  man  exists  by 
love  and  reason;  and  through  love  and  reason  alone 
can  he  live.  This,  the  quality  that  cements,  that 
builds,  that  creates!  This,  the  principle  that  recog- 
nizes in  every  man  a  heart  and  a  soul.  Not  every- 
one for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost,  is 
our  motto;  but  all  for  each,  and  each  for  all,  and 
God  for  each  and  all.  Man  must  be  considered 
in  terms  of  life,  not  matter.  His  title-deeds  are 
the  laws  of  higher  nature,  not  the  lower.  He  is 
her  beginning  and  her  end,  the  Alpha  and  Omega 
of  creation,  God's  masterpiece. 

In  religion  the  ideal  is  equality,  in  ethics  the 
ideal  is  equality,  in  politics  the  ideal  is  equality,  in 
business  it  is  inequality.  We  devote  nine-tenths  of 
our  time  to  the  latter.  Is  it  not  perfectly  plain  then 
that  any  progress  in  these  former  must  be  invali- 
dated in  the  measure  our  business  ideal  is  attained? 
We  will  never  emerge  from  this  slough  of  despond, 
this  swamp  of  despair  and  misery  while  Pluto  is  the 
God  of  worship,  in  counting-room  and  factory,  in 
mansion  and  hovel  — -  while  the  basic  law  of  indus- 
try is  the  greatest  return  for  the  least  effort. 

The  socialization  of  every  avenue  of  supply  and 
every  means  of  production  alone  will  make  us  one 


I  lo  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

grand,  homogeneous  nation.  Until  of  late,  many 
good  and  excellent  men  have  disputed  the  possibil- 
ity of  organizing  and  conducting  business  on  such 
a  basis.  The  preliminary  work  of  this  organiza- 
tion is  being  done  by  such  geniuses  as  John  D. 
Rockefeller.  Our  immense  railroad  system  is 
practically  in  the  hands  of  four  or  five  cliques; 
likewise  our  banking  institutions.  Business  is 
concentrating  itself  more  and  more  rapidly  in  the 
hands  of  a  few.  All  this  has  been  accomplished 
through  such  master-minds  as  the  gentleman  in 
discussion.  All  industry  will  soon  be  within  the 
control  of  a  few  men.  If  the  work  of  the  organ- 
ization of  industry,  and  the  disorganization  and 
destruction  of  man  proceeds  within  the  next  twen- 
ty-five years,  as  it  has  in  the  past,  all  mankind  will 
rise  up  and  demand  the  intercession  of  the  State. 

In  the  municipal  and  national  conduct  of  tele- 
graph, post,  and  railroads,  socialism  has  vindicated 
her  claims.  Rivers  and  highways,  formerly  "pri- 
vateered,"  have  become  socialized  to  the  fullest 
extent.  Our  schools  are  maintained  at  a  cost 
irrespective  of  individual  benefit.  Our  courts  are 
open  to  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich.  Police  and 
fire  protection,   electric   lighting,   each   is  now  a 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  1 1 1 

public  function  at  a  public  cost.  Our  sewerage 
system,  street  cleaning,  paving,  and  a  hundred 
other  activities  are  largely  excluded  from  the  quid- 
pro-quo  method.  If  socialism  has  proven  her  merit 
in  these  and  a  thousand  other  fields,  why  will  the 
socialization  of  other  still  more  important  avenues 
of  production  not  conduce  to  like  results  and  restore 
order  out  of  the  chaos  and  anarchy  and  ruin  of  the 
business  of  today?  We  feel  that  Rockefeller  and 
his  Kind,  in  consolidating  industry,  are  clearing 
away  the  debris  and  underbrush  in  the  path  of  our 
onward  march. 

May  God  grant  him  many  more  years  of  good 
health  and  activity.     We  are  with  him. 
I  vote  "No." 


"What  constitutes  a  State? 
Not  high-raised  battlements  or  la- 
bored mound, 
Thick  wall  or  moated  gate; 
Not   cities  proud,   with   spires  and 
turrets  crowned ; 
Not  bays  and  broad-armed  ports. 
Where  laughing  at  the  storm,  rich 
navies  ride ; 


1 12  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 


Not  starred  and  spangled  courts. 
Where  low-browed  baseness  wafts 
perfume  to  pride. 
No  !     men  —  high-minded  men — 
With  powers    as  far    above     dull 
brutes  endued, 
In  forest,  brake  or  den, 
As   beasts    excel    cold     rocks   and 
brambles  rude ;  etc." 

— Sir  William  Jones. 


"He  who  has  property  in  the  soil 
has  the  same  up  to  the  sky." — Latin 
Proverb. 

LANDLORD 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

I  did  not  intend  to  say  anything,  as  I  am  no 
speaker.  But  inasmuch  as  my  business  seems  to 
be  the  special  target  of  some  of  you,  I  would  like 
to  explain  my  situation,  and  get  a  little  information. 
My  grandfather  was  a  hard-working  man;  by 
much  self-denial  he  accumulated  a  little  money, 
and  purchased  some  land  in  our  metropolis.  The 
city  has  grown;  so  has  the  value  of  the  property. 
I  have  inherited  it.  Part  of  this  land  I  improved; 
part  was  improved  by  my  ancestors.  My  income 
therefrom,  after  deducting  the  taxes,  the  charges 
of  superintendence,  collection  of  rents,  repairs, 
insurance,  etc.,  amounts  to  several  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars.     Part  of  this,  my  income,  I  spend; 


114  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

part  I  save.  In  every  European  country  my  busi- 
ness is  an  honorable  one,  highly  esteemed.  If  to 
be  a  rentier  is  an  honorable  caHing  in  Europe,  why 
not  here?  Now,  I  want  to  ask  my  democratic 
friend,  in  what  respect  can  I  be  injurious  to  society? 

Mr.  Democrat: — To  the  extent  that  your  income 
exceeds  the  value  of  your  services  to  society,  as 
fixed  by  a  free,  open  market.  In  other  words,  you 
injure  society  to  the  extent  that  your  titles  in  land 
enable  you  to  make  demands  for  the  use  of  your 
capital  which  you  otherwise  could  not. 

Mr.  Landlord: — But  what  is  the  difference 
whether  my  money  be  invested  in  business  or  in 
land? 

Mr.  Democrat: — In  one  there  is  competition;  in 
the  other  not.  About  one-tenth  of  the  people  of 
America  own  three-fourths  of  the  land;  the  other 
nine-tenths  living  and  unborn,  are  dependent  on 
this  monopoly.  With  time,  everything  else  but 
land  deteriorates  and  wastes  away.  The  quantity 
of  land  remains  stationary,  the  population  in- 
creases; man's  existence  depends  upon  it;  it  should 
be  made  as  available  to  mankind  as  possible.  Its 
treatment  as  property  should  be  discouraged  in 
such  manner  and  to  such  extent  as  is  consistent 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  115 

with  its  improvement.  Man's  other  wants  may  be 
satisfied  by  production;  but  land  cannot  be  pro- 
duced. It  was  created,  it  never  dies,  it  never  goes 
out  of  business,  it  never  becomes  bankrupt;  all 
other  things,  man  and  property,  come  and  go;  but 
land  —  never.  We  must  all  buy  of  Mother  Earth ; 
why  should  she  be  enslaved  to  the  caprice  of  a  few? 
But  if  she  must  be  enslaved,  her  bonders  should  pay 
as  dearly  as  possible  for  the  privilege,  rather  than 
as  cheaply  as  possible.  Instead  of  contriving  to 
relieve  her  masters  from  taxation,  we  should  pursue 
the  contrary  policy  of  constantly  increasing  their 
burdens,  to  the  end,  that  they  relieve  the  disin- 
herited from  all  taxation. 

Mr.  Landlord :— Well,  I  can't  see  it  that  way. 
But,  if  I  should  not  be  entitled  to  rent  for  the  use 
of  my  land,  I  certainly  should  be  to  the  interest  on 
my  capital  invested? 

Mr.  Democrat: — Not  necessarily.  Suppose  you 
had  invested  in  an  immoral  or  illegal  business,  for 
example,  slaves  or  illicit  distilling  or  gambling  — 

Mr.  Landlord: — Yes,  but  it  is  invested  in  land 
and  houses,  which  have  always  been  considered  as 
private  property. 

Mr.  Democrat: — No,  they  have  not;  neither  the 


ii6  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

one,  nor  the  other.  No  absolute  ownership  of  land 
is  even  today  recognized  by  the  English  law.  No 
man  is,  under  it,  the  absolute  owner  of  land,  and 
landowners  are  merely  tenants  of  the  state.  This 
is  its  legal  status  in  courts  of  law;  courts  of  equity 
and  the  common  court  of  reason  reaffirm  this  prin- 
ciple. Says  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson:  —  "While 
another  man  has  no  land,  my  title  to  mine,  your  title 
to  yours  is  at  once  vitiated." 

However,  nobody  today  would  deny  your  right 
to  interest  on  the  capital  invested  in  houses.  Houses 
are  man's  creation;  land  is  not.  The  history  of 
every  country,  Oriental  and  Occidental,  testifies  to 
the  former  communal  character  of  land.  As  late 
as  the  commencement  of  the  i8th  century  land  in 
England  was  largely  communal.  Blackstone's 
Commentaries,  still  studied  by  the  legal  aspirants 
of  our  day,  are  so  much  devoted  to  communal  rights 
as  to  bewilder  and  confuse  the  student.  Lawrence's 
new  system  of  Agriculture,  published  in  1726,  states 
that  ''it  is  believed  that  one-half  of  the  kingdom  are 
commons  and  a  third  of  all  the  kingdom  is  what 
we  call  common  fields."  In  l8j9  only  264,000 
acres  were  common  out  of  3^ '57939^  acres. 
Such  is  the  encroachment  on  the  rights  of  the  peo- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  iij 

pie.  It  has  been  appropriated  by  the  superior  force 
of  warrior  classes;  acquiescence  in  their  claims  to 
ownership  in  perpetuity  has  been  forced  upon  the 
defenseless.  These  claimants  at  first  paid  all 
taxes,  dues  and  burdens,  both  in  peace  and  in  war; 
now,  they  hold  the  land,  make  the  propertyless  pay 
all  taxes,  dues,  and  burdens  —  even  rent  besides. 
Land  has  acquired  special  rights;  land-owners 
have  secured  them,  and  society  lost  them.  The 
more  the  landlord's  interest  in  land  is  minimized, 
the  greater  will  become  society's  share;  and,  con- 
versely, the  fewer  rights  we  grant  to  the  ownership 
of  land,  and  the  more  burdens  we  impose  upon  it, 
the  greater  will  society's  interest  become  therein  — 
society  becomes  wealthy  instead  of  the  land-owner. 
You  read  a  little  Henry  George,  and  get  posted. 

Mr.  Landlord: — That's  news  to  me.  I  supposed 
land  had  always  been  considered  property,  as  now. 
However,  supposing  all  that  to  be  so;  suppose  that 
property  in  land  ought  to  be  abolished.  May  I 
not,  in  the  meantime,  be  a  benefactor  of  society, 
according  as  I  spend  my  money? 

Mr.  Democrat: — Yes,  if  you  spend  it  as  society 
would,  in  case  it  had  original,  virgin  control;  or,  if 
you  spend  your  time  and  money  trying  to  restore 


1 1 8  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  land  to  them  from  whom  it  was  so  unjustly 
taken  and  from  whom  it  is  now  so  inequitably 
withheld. 

Mr.  Landlord: — But  the  people  are  not  making 
any  demand  therefor.  And  even  if  they  did,  I 
would  not  know  to  whom  to  give  my  land,  if  I 
thought  you  were  right. 

Mr.  Democrat: — The  people  know  something  is 
wrong.  With  your  leisure  and  ability  you  should 
find  out  what  it  is,  and  act  accordingly.  Property 
in  land  should  not,  and  never  will,  be  abolished. 
You  are  not  to  give  your  land  to  anyone.  No  one 
expects  that.  You  would  continue  to  hold  posses- 
sion of  your  land  as  now,  but  mainly  to  draw  inter- 
est or  rent  on  the  capital  invested  in  your  houses. 
Don't  you  see,  that  the  more  you  tax  an  industry, 
the  more  you  discourage  it?  Capital,  instead  of 
seeking  burdened  industries,  seeks  favored  ones. 
Hence,  if  you  tax  land  sufficiently  capital  leaves  it 
and  enters  untaxed  fields.  Therefore,  if  you  are  a 
fair  and  just  man,  you  will  agitate  for  direct  tax- 
ation, and  the  abolishment  of  all  indirect  taxes. 
Once  your  heart  tells  you  that  every  man  has  a 
right  to  live,  that  society  is  organized  for  the  bene- 
fit of  all,  rather  than  for  the  benefit  of  one,  you 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  119 

will  look  at  this  question  in  a  different  light;  your 
eyes  begin  to  open  to  the  restless  army  of  outraged 
mankind,  standing  in  vain  at  the  gate  of  nature, 
knocking  for  admission  to  her  bountiful  gardens, 
while  the  jailers  have  run  away  with  the  keys. 

Mr.  Landlord: — But,  if  I  had  my  money  in- 
vested in  business,  either  on  my  own  account,  or  in 
these  large  trusts,  I  should  have  more  work  in  the 
former  case,  and  more  worry  in  the  latter. 

Mr.  Democrat: — That's  just  it;  society  would 
profit  by  your  labor.  Now  you  render  no  service 
to  society,  which  enriches  you. 

Mr.  Landlord: — In  such  case,  my  money  and  my 
work  would  enter  into  competition  with  other  cap- 
ital and  labor  in  industries  already  overcrowded. 
Would  that  not  be  injurious? 

Mr.  Democrat: — No.  Free  competition  has 
never  yet  been  injurious;  it  is  only  its  abuse,  its 
prevention,  which  does  harm.  The  rider  never 
complains  of  the  winning  horse,  when  the  race  is 
fair;  but,  when  one  horse  must  ride  with  extra 
weight,  over-checked,  over-weighted,  handicapped 
in  time  and  space  —  who  would  not  protest? 

Mr.  Landlord: — Well,  I  never  before  heard  so 
much  on  this  subject.     I  propose  to  investigate  this 


I20  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

matter  myself.  Yet,  it  seems  to  me  that  so  many 
other  improprieties  now  exist  that  should  first  be 
attended  to.  Tariffs,  subsidies,  street  and  steam 
railroad  franchises  —  all  these  work  as  great  harm 
as  the  land  system,  if  that  really  be  so  detrimental. 

But,  I  have  unnecessarily  taken  up  your  time, 
gentlemen.  You  are  not  interested  in  my  education. 
As  to  the  matter  before  us,  I  must  vote  "No."  I 
think  Rockefeller  should  work  as  long  as  he  so 
desires.  It  is  none  of  our  business,  nor  that  of  the 
public.  Besides,  I  am  personally  acquainted  with 
him,  and  know  him  to  be  a  fine  fellow.  I  admire 
him!  He  is  a  self-made  man  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  What  he  has,  he  made  himself.  He  owes 
nobody  anything  for  his  present  greatness.  And 
if  the  manner  of  the  investment  of  my  money  be 
open  to  criticism,  his  certainly  is  not.  His  money 
is  not  invested  in  land;  neither  did  he  make  it 
through  speculation  therein. 

I  vote  "No." 

"Who  never  doubted,  never  half 
believed.  Where  doubt  is,  there 
truth  is — it  is  her  shadow." — Bailey. 


"The  self-same  sun  that  shines  up- 
on his  court, 

Hides  not  his  visage  from  our  cot- 
tage, but 

Looks  on  aHke."       — Shakespeare. 

FARMER 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

I  don't  know  what  business  I've  got  on  this  jury. 
I  didn't  know  you  were  all  speech-makers.  If  I 
had,  I'd  have  told  that  lawyer,  that  I  was  preju- 
diced so  as  to  get  fired.  I  haven't  really  anything 
against  John ;  I'm  not  for  him  or  against  him.  He 
has  certainly  done  a  big  thing  for  many  of  us 
farmers.  He's  dug  many  a  hole  in  our  potato 
patches,  so  that  many  a  duffer  got  the  stuff  to  pay 
off  his  mortgage,  who  otherwise  would  have  been 
a  dead  one,  sure  enough. 

Of  course,  I  don't  approve  of  John's  owning  all 
these  oil-wells  and  skinning  the  public.  But  ain't 
that  what  all  of  you  are  doing?     Ain't  trade  a 


122  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

skin  game  all  the  way  through?  The  manufac- 
turer organizes  trusts  to  make  us  pay  for  his  fun, 
the  railroad  magnates  organize  combines  to  make 
us  pay  the  freight,  the  laborer  organizes  unions  to 
make  us  pay  his  wages,  but  we  farmers  can't  get 
together  to  make  you  pay  for  our  wheat.  Any 
good  you  fellows  do  in  raising  or  boosting  of  prices 
is  at  our  expense.  We  can't  combine  or  organize 
or  unionize  'cause  there's  too  many  of  us  and  too 
far  apart.  We  get  it  in  the  neck  going  and  com- 
ing. We  plow  and  manure  and  seed  our  acres, 
but  somebody  else  gets  the  harvest.  The  legisla- 
ture shuffles  the  cards  so  we  get  a  two-spot  of 
spades,  while  the  rest  of  you  get  the  kings  and 
aces  of  diamonds.  M^e  pay  more  than  a  fair  pro- 
portion of  the  direct  taxes,  and  more  than  our  share 
of  the  hold-up  taxes.  But  our  corn  and  wheat 
don't  grow  any  higher.  After  we've  stood  and 
delivered  to  the  slick  ones  at  home,  we're  permitted 
to  throw  our  wheat  in  a  common  bin  with  the  rag, 
tag,  and  bobtail  of  China  and  Russia  and  India. 

When  this  business  of  nursing  suckling  infants 
was  first  begun,  it  was  to  secure  a  home  market  for 
the  farmer.  We  bit  the  bait,  and  now  we  see  we 
were  all  played  for  suckers  —  we're  exporting  our 
crops  more  than  ever.     We  got  it  in  the  neck;  the 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  123 

infants  are  eating  porterhouse  steaks  and  drinking 
champagne.  From  1870  to  1904  the  exports  of 
agricultural  products  jumped  from  361,000,000 
bushels  or  about  236*^",  while  the  population  in- 
creased from  38,000,000  to  81,000,000  or  about 
213^".  So  it  seems,  the  bigger  the  population,  the 
less  we  eat  our  own  foods.  Instead  of  getting  a 
home  market  for  our  goods,  ave  are  losing  our  hold 
on  it.  Instead  of  getting  artificial  prices,  like  the 
rest  of  you  patriots,  our  labor  and  product  is  in 
open  competition  with  the  wheat,  corn,  and  oats 
of  foreign  cheap  labor.  We  are  the  biggest  pro- 
ducers of  wheat,  I  know,  but  it  only  amounts  to 
about  20*^°  of  the  world's  production;  so,  unless  the 
tail  wags  the  dog,  the  Rozhdestvenskys  of  Russia 
and  Don  Quixotes  of  South  America  and  the 
Pariahs  of  India  fix  its  price. 

But  nobody  wants  a  home  market  today.  It's 
all  the  go  now  for  a  foreign  market.  The  game 
has  changed.  We  are  to  sell  more  than  we  buy. 
But  if  that's  the  game,  can't  Johnny  Bull  and  Uncle 
Fritz  and  little  Frenchy  play  it  as  well  as  we?  Or, 
are  these  new  bunco-steerers  after  the  fat  purse  of 
Mr.  Hottentot  and  Mr.  Bushman  perhaps?  There's 
a  big  mix-up  somewhere.       Somebody  is  getting 


124  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

awfully  fooled.  When  I  went  to  school  my  task- 
master told  me  that  all  the  professors  agreed  that 
nations,  as  individuals,  get  rich  when  they  get  more 
than  they  give  in  a  trade.  And  that's  what  Uncle 
Sam  did  before  1873.  With  the  single  exception  of 
the  year  1862,  when  our  exports  exceeded  our  im- 
ports by  $1,313,824,  our  exports  each  year  from 
i860  to  1873  exceeded  imports  by  amounts  varying 
from  30  to  180  million  dollars.  Ever  since  then 
the  balance  has  been  the  other  way,  with  but  three 
exceptional  years,  in  amounts  running  up  as  high  as 
$500,000,000,  I  believe.  Our  outgo  and  ingo  of 
things  and  cash  is  getting  farther  and  farther  apart 
in  favor  of  the  foreigner.  I'll  bet  he's  laughing 
in  his  sleeve  at  our  smartness.  He's  really  living 
on  our  cheap  land,  or  I  might  say  he's  hired  us  to 
work  for  him  on  his  land.  It's  all  the  same.  He's 
just  sitting  in  his  easy  chair  and  getting  his  check 
for  his  weekly  rent  of  $10,000,000.  This  is  the 
new  doctrine  how  to  get  rich  quick,  as  taught  by 
our  modern  great  "captains  of  industry." 

But  they  don't  mean  us  when  they  speak  of  mak- 
ing the  country  rich  —  the  country's  themselves. 
For  anybody  who  will  look  at  the  figures  a  little 
will  see  that  our  farms  ain't  worth  as  much  today 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  125 

as  in  1870.  That's  the  best  proof,  I  guess,  of  the 
farmer's  big  load  of  prosperity.  Why!  In  many 
states  the  farms  with  all  improvements  are  being 
abandoned,  really  abandoned.  I  have  before  me 
a  circular,  issued  in  1889  by  the  Commissioner  of 
Agriculture  and  Manufacturing  Interests  in  Ver- 
mont. He  offers  for  sale  4,000  acres  of  land  at 
$1  and  $2  per  acre  and  says  "one-half  are  lands 
which  formerly  comprised  good  farms,  but  with 
buildings  now  gone,  and  fast  growing  up  in  tim- 
ber; some  of  this  land  is  used  for  pasturage,  and 
on  other  portions  the  fences  are  not  kept  up,  leaving 
old  cellar-holes  and  miles  of  stone-walls  to  testify 
to  former'civilization."  This  is  the  case  all  over 
the  East.  In  the  year  1890  it  constituted  3.45^°  of 
the  total  farm  acreage  of  Massachusetts.  The 
Maine  Labor  Bureau  reports  3,318  abandoned 
farms  in  that  State,  averaging  767  acres;  and  of  the 
25,746  townships  in  the  United  States  in  1890,  10,- 
063  actually  had  less  population  than  in  the  year 
1880.  I  guess  that  proves  that  the  farmer's  got  a 
good  hold  on  the  tarred  end  of  the  stick.  He 
forsakes  his  land  as  rats  do  a  sinking  ship.  He's 
actually  driven  off  of  his  land  through  inequitable 
taxation,  partly  direct  but  mostly  indirect.  He's 
got  to  carry  too  many  infants;  and  it's  the  smell  of 


126  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

that  champagne  that  staggers  him  all  the  more. 
But  some  of  you  may  say  the  farmer's  better  off 
today  than  50  years  ago.  He  can  eat  and  drink  and 
travel  as  his  ancestors  couldn't.  Well,  that's  so. 
We're  partaking  a  little  of  the  blessings  of  civili- 
zation and  culture  and  peace  and  plenty  and  pros- 
perity. We're  in  the  same  position  as  the  laborer. 
We  get  about  the  same  pay  for  our  goods  and  fill 
our  stomachs  pretty  well;  can  afford  a  little  nip 
now  and  then,  wear  good  clothes  on  Sunday,  and 
wear  better  shoes  than  formerly.  We  feel  power- 
ful rich  until  we  begin  to  look  around,  and  we 
can't  help  doing  that.  Because  if  we  should  forget 
it  occasionally  the  city  Ho-Boes  come  along  and 
toot  their  automobiles  and  holler  at  us  to  make  us 
look  at  them.  I  suppose  they  think  what's  the  use 
of  having  the  stufif  if  you  can't  put  on  a  little  dog. 
The  value  of  riches  is  the  envy  it  can  produce. 
So  we  and  the  laborer  look  around  us  and  find  we 
must  do  more  work  than  formerly  for  these  auto- 
mobiles and  private  car  guys  and  that  therefore 
we  have  gotten  poorer  relatively.  And  I  guess 
that's  all  poorness  or  richness  means  —  not  the 
number  of  dollars  you've  got  planted  out  in  the 
corn-field,  but  your  position  in  the  ranks  of  power. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  127 

And  while  we're  talking  of  prosperity  let  me  tell 
you,  that  you  get  another  think  about  the  cause  of 
it.  Don't  you  swell  up  too  much.  Our  prosperity 
is  not  ours.  It's  due  to  the  big  production  of  gold, 
the  standard  of  all  values.  Why!  Since  1870 
the  annual  production  of  gold  has  tripled,  and 
since  1893  doubled,  and  each  year  as  much  gold  is 
now  produced  as  in  five  years  before  1870;  that's 
w^hy  prosperity  is  world-wide,  in  England  and 
Germany  and  France,  in  Japan  and  India  and 
China,  in  Mexico  and  Brazil  and  Paraguay. 

It's  just  a  kind  of  April  fool.  Everybody  thinks 
they're  getting  richer  and  that's  what  makes  the 
world  go.  The  chances  are  better  for  making 
money,  and  they  think  that  means  richness.  So  it 
does  as  long  as  the  other  fellows  don't  pile  in  the 
dough  at  the  same  rate.  These  fellows  are  all 
getting  richer  in  their  mind's  eye.  But  I  guess 
that's  the  same  as  though  it  really  were  so,  because 
it  makes  them  work,  and  they  have  their  feelings 
of  prosperity,  which  after  all,  is  the  main  thing. 
But  whenever  there's  a  big  change  of  values  going 
on,  the  farmer  tags  behind  in  the  procession  in 
realizing  its  benefits  —  the  army  of  agriculturalists 
in  the  world  is  so  big  that  it's  not  very  mobile;  the 
captains  have  to  tell  us  ^'to  get  a  move  on." 


1 28  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

In  so  far  as  the  United  States  figures  up  particu- 
larly big  in  production,  in  comparison  with  other 
nations,  it's  because  of  our  large  increase  of  popu- 
lation, and  because  nature  has  been  kind  to  us. 
The  wheat  production,  for  instance,  jumped  from 
235,000,000  bushels  in  1870  to  637,000,000  in  1903  ; 
and  last  year  the  value  of  our  poultry  alone 
equalled  the  balance  of  trade.  You  fellows  don't 
want  to  forget  that  we're  a  farming  community. 
44^^^  of  our  people  are  directly  engaged  in  agricul- 
tural pursuits.  Add  to  that  all  the  tingle-tangle  of 
humanity,  the  barbers,  butchers,  storekeepers,  and 
salesmen,  and  the  transportation,  banking,  and  por- 
fessional  rifif-rafif,  dependent  on  them  for  support, 
and  you  find  that  at  least  80^^  of  our  people  rely  on 
sunshine  and  rain  and  manure  for  our  prosperity. 
Why!  Our  manufactured  goods  comprise  but 
T-Sj^^"  of  the  total  internal  commerce  moved  on 
American  railways.  You  let  nature  go  on  a  strike 
some  year,  as  she  did  in  '93  and  you'll  find  you've 
got  a  panic  on  your  hands  notwithstanding  all 
economies  of  waste  now  going  on. 

Some  of  you,  gentlmeen,  talk  a  great  deal  about 
economy  of  production,  or  the  saving  of  waste. 
Well,  I  don't  know  much  about  these  new-fangled 
expressions.     But  I  see  every  time  there's  a  saving 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  129 

of  waste,  there's  a  big  lot  of  empty  stomachs.  A 
saving  of  waste  is  generally  a  division  of  producers 
and  a  multiplication  of  paupers.  They  are  thrown 
on  their  hands  and  knees  for  another  job  in  another 
field  concerning  which  they  know  nothing.  The 
result  is  they  get  children's  wages  or  the  poor- 
house.  We  want  a  waste  of  production  because 
that  means  work  and  a  full  stomach.  We  want  a 
waste  of  consumption  because  that  puts  ginger  in 
our  production. 

Gentlemen,  we  must  look  more  to  the  prosperity 
of  the  farmer  —  his  good  fortune  is  ours.  When 
he's  prosperous,  everybody  is.  Such  fellows  as 
Rockefeller  are  an  unimportant  factor.  They  are 
but  the  butterflies  hovering  about  the  rose-bushes 
in  the  farmer's  garden.  They're  pretty  to  look  at, 
but  they  don't  raise  the  bush. 

So,  because  we  can't  give  the  farmer  any  advan- 
tage over  other  people  through  protective  tariffs, 
or  through  consolidations,  or  through  labor  unions, 
I  think  immigration  should  be  prohibited,  and 
every  farmer  should  have  a  bounty  on  every  bushel 
of  wheat,  and  corn,  and  on  every  pound  of  cotton 
and  wool  produced,  the  same  as  England  did  last 
century  when  she  allowed  sometimes  a  bounty, 
sometimes  an  export  tax,  on  corn.     For  who  will 


130  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

deny  that  if  any  class  is  to  be  benefited  by  legisla- 
tion, the  more  numerous  the  class,  the  better?  The 
farmer  is  the  biggest  class  of  people.  That's  why 
I'm  opposed  to  trusts  —  they  benefit  a  few  individ- 
uals. That's  why  I'm  opposed  to  labor  unions  — 
they  benefit  a  comparatively  small  number  of  peo- 
ple. The  agriculturalists  should  be  unionized, 
organized,  trustized. 

I  guess  I'll  vote  for  John  in  the  hope  that  he'll 
come  out  West  and  do  a  few  kindly  things  for  us. 
If  he'll  come  and  organize  us,  I'll  vote  for  him  for 
President  of  the  United  States,  or  ask  our  Congre- 
gationalist  minister  to  secure  a  seat  for  him  aside  of 
me  in  heaven.  I  sometimes  think  that  he  would 
never  organize  us,  because  if  the  farmers  were  or- 
ganized and  had  a  few  trump  cards,  it  might  be  a 
winning  hand  —  it  might  take  in  all  of  Rock's 
cards.  But  in  the  hope  that  he  will  do  something 
for  us,  especially  since  he's  getting  so  good  lately, 
I'm  going  to  vote  against  putting  him  on  the  shelf. 

I  vote  "No." 

"Learn  to  be  pleased  with  every- 
thing-; with  wealth,  so  far  as  it 
makes  us  beneficial  to  others ;  with 
poverty,  for  not  having  much  to 
care  for;  and  with  obscurity,  for 
;  being  unenvied." — Plutarch. 


"The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not 
meat,  nor  drink." — A^eiv  Testament. 

"The  unwarlike  man  conquers. 
He  who  submits  to  others,  controls 
them.  By  this  negation  of  all 
things  we  come  into  possession  of 
all  things.  Not  to  act,  is  the  se- 
cret of  all  power." — Tao. 

"The  source  of  all  evil  is  the  de- 
sire for  things  which  change  and 
pass  away.  Annihilation  of  the  de- 
sires is  perfect  happiness." — Budd- 
hism: 

MINISTER 

Brethren: — 

The  question  before  us  has  been  discussed  with 
much  learning  and  ability.  I  doubt  whether  a 
more  enlightened  or  better  qualified  jury  could 
have  been  impanelled  to  pass  on  the  matter  before 
us.  I  thank  the  Lord  especially  that  He  has  per- 
mitted me  to  be  among  you  and  has  given  me  this 
opportunity  of  promulgating  His  work,  His  will, 
and  His  desire. 


132  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

And  yet,  gentlemen,  it  grieves  me  greatly  to 
notice  the  display  of  so  much  passion  and  feeling 
in  a  cause  essentially  irreligious. 

This  discussion  has  served  to  accentuate  the  one 
fact  that  our  national  life  is  spent  in  the  search  for 
things,  and  not  in  the  attainment  of  our  spiritual 
welfare;  the  realization  of  this  world  and  not  the 
next;  the  satisfaction  of  earthly  desires,  and  not 
the  soul's  aspirations. 

Your  thoughts  are  focused  on  a  single  moment 
in  a  life  everlasting.  You  are  turning  your  atten- 
tion to  but  a  single  sand  on  a  boundless  ocean  shore. 
There's  another  world  besides  this,  a  future  as  well 
as  a  present.  Its  joys  and  pleasures  are  beyond 
description;  its  duration  outruns  human  concep- 
tion of  time;  its  extent  is  illimitable.  Those  who 
enjoy  this  world  will  not  know  the  delights  of  the 
next;  and  those  selected  by  Divine  Grace  for  His 
Providence  there,  must  forfeit  the  pleasures  of  life 
here.  "He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he 
that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it  unto 
Life  Eternal;"  "He  that  soweth  unto  the  flesh, 
shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption,  but  he  that 
soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  Life 
Everlasting." 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  133 

Brethren,  all  of  you  have  been  discussing  by 
what  process  and  in  what  manner  man  may  mul- 
tiply the  number  of  things  in  this  world,  and  how 
this  booty  may  be  more  equally  divided.  Indeed, 
some  of  you  are  merely  intent  on  the  production 
of  things  without  even  a  thought  as  to  their  distri- 
bution. Is  this  not  wasting  man's  divine  nature 
on  ignoble  matter?  Has  anyone  ever  in  this  world 
become  permanently  happy  through  the  acquisi- 
tion or  accumulation  of  this  world's  products? 

How  often  am  I  reminded  of  Paul's  significant 
admonishments:  "As  sorrowful,  yet  always  rejoic- 
ing; as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich;  as  having 
nothing,  and  yet  possessing  all  things."  How 
plain  this  all  is  to  the  real  seeker  of  truth!  How 
simple  the  teaching  of  God,  and  how  close  His 
kingdom  even  on  this  earth!  The  Holy  Book 
nowhere  says:  Accumulate  wealth  and  save,  care 
for  your  own  and  the  economic  welfare  of  your 
family ;  but  it  does  say :  "Take  no  thought  of  your 
life,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink;  nor 
yet  for  the  body  what  ye  shall  put  on;  lay  not  up 
for  yourselves  treasures  on  earth,  where  moth  and 
rust  doth  corrupt,  and  thieves  break  through  and 
steal."     Pleasures  of  mind  and  of  sense,  develop- 


134  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ment  of  physical  capacity,  fame,  honor —  all  these 
things  are  foreign  to  a  true  Christian  life.  We 
nowhere  read:  Have  a  care  for  the  development 
of  your  natural  capacities,  train  the  body  by  gym- 
nastic exercises,  make  it  strong  and  beautiful,  train 
the  intellect  and  senses,  so  that  you  may  appreciate 
the  creations  of  art  and  poetry,  the  products  of 
philosophy  and  science;  but  we  do  read:  "If  one 
of  thy  members  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out  and  cast 
it  from  thee."  We  nowhere  read:  Try  to  obtain 
honors,  help  your  friends  to  achieve  fame  and 
position;  but  we  do  read:  "There  be  eunuchs 
which  have  made  themselves  eunuchs  for  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven's  Sake."  We  nowhere  read: 
Go  and  serve  the  state  with  the  sword  or  with  thy 
counsel ;  but  we  read :  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world."  We  nowhere  read:  Go  and  labor  for 
the  happiness  of  the  human  race;  but  we  read: 
"The  world  passeth  away  and  the  lust  thereof." 
We  do  not  read  of  gain  of  things  as  the  Love  of 
God,  but  "Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things 
that  are  in  the  world.  If  any  man  love  the  world, 
the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him.  For  all  that 
is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  135 

of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the 
Father,  but  is  of  the  world." 

Is  it  not  apparent  to  all  of  you  that  on  the 
authority  of  the  Holy  Book  your  pursuits  are 
ignoble,  your  strife  unworthy,  your  pride  inglor- 
ious, and  your  wealth  poverty?  Are  not  all  your 
ideals  steeped  in  the  pleasures  of  this  world?  Are 
they  not  the  desires  of  carnal  beings?  Do  they 
not  even  grow  with  satisfaction?  Have  they  ever 
administered  to  happiness  in  this  life? 

I  notice  a  predisposition  on  the  part  of  each  of 
you  to  the  frequent  use  of  the  word  "Love."  What 
a  noble  word!  What  our  language,  our  civiliza- 
tion—  indeed,  our  life  —  without  it!  What  the 
value  of  any  religion  which  does  not  apotheosize 
it!  Indeed,  has  a  religious  system  ever  been 
revealed  or  created,  written  or  spoken  by  mortal 
or  immortal  man  without  "love"  as  its  keystone? 
Love  and  life,  are  they  not  the  same?  Must  they 
not  forever  be  linked  together?  But  not  in  the 
sense  you  use  it,  brethren;  not  love  of  mankind  for 
the  enjoyment  of  this  world,  but  for  a  seat  in 
Heaven. 

But  many  of  vou  may  still  misunderstand  me. 
Perhaps  you  will  better  interpret  my  language  in 


136  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

this:  "But  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  resist  not  evil, 
but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek 
turn  to  him  also  the  other.  And  if  any  man  shall 
sue  thee  at  law  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him 
have  thy  cloak  also."  So;  "Agree  with  thine 
adversary  quickly  while  thou  art  in  the  way  with 
him."  Again ;  "Why  do  ye  not  rather  take  wrong? 
Why  do  ye  not  suffer  yourself  to  be  defrauded?" 
Not  the  accumulation  of  money  and  things,  nor 
the  gracious,  liberal,  and  merciful  spending  is 
"Love,"  but:  "Go  thy  way,  sell  whatever  thou  hast, 
and  give  to  the  poor  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure 
in  Heaven." 

A  voice: — Your  idea  of  Love  then  is  abnegation. 
Mr.  Minister'. — Yes. 

Voice: — That  is  an  antiquated,  primitive  inter- 
pretation. 

Mr.  Minister: — But  the  primitive  Christians 
made  Christianity  what  it  is;  they  struggled  for 
it;  they  created  it;  they  knew  its  strength  and  its 
weakness.  Then  it  was  a  living  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  an  army  of  sincere  idealists  and  earnest 
enthusiasts.  They  spent  their  time  thinking  of  the 
hereafter;  we  are  solely  concerned  with  the  here. 
They  interpreted  Christianity  as  the  denial  of  self^ 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  IT,J 

the  humiliation  of  man  before  his  fellowman  and 
God  —  the  belittlement  of  our  earthly  significance. 
This,  my  friends,  is  not  only  Christianity,  it  is 
"Love,"  the  basis  of  all  religions.  It  is  the  yard- 
stick, true  and  reliable  and  certain,  by  which  every 
theology  and  all  human  conduct  can  and  must  be 
measured.  It  is,  indeed,  religion  itself.  Love, 
submission,  humiliation,  abnegation,  religion  —  all 
these  are  synonymous  terms.  Love  and  humility 
before  God  is,  of  course,  the  primary  doctrine. 
But  this  is  only  a  stepping-stone  to  the  greater  and 
higher  virtue  of  submission  to  mankind,  his  most 
eloquent  creation,  his  most  divine  revelation.  And 
it  is  irrelevant  both  from  an  ethical  and  from  a 
religious  point  of  view  whether  our  God  be  per- 
sonal or  impersonal,  the  great  Unknown  in  man 
or  in  nature,  or  whether  it  be  Nature  herself;  for 
each  of  these  conceptions  will  prompt  the  same 
spirit  and  conduce  to  like  morality. 

Such  interpretation  of  love,  Christianity,  and 
religion  does  not  sway  to  and  fro  with  the  passions 
of  men.  What  was  once  a  virtue  does  not  in  the 
course  of  time  become  a  vice.  What  is  good  in  the 
interpretation  of  one,  does  not  exegetically  become 
bad  for  another.     With  this  conception  man  can 


138  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

no  longer  be  both  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  and  a 
butcher  of  men;  he  may  not  carry  the  bible  in  one 
hand  and  wield  the  sword  with  the  other.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  two  parellel  creeks  joining  and  form- 
ing one  muddy  channel,  but  one  grand  silent 
stream  of  pure  crystal  water,  overflowing  our 
droughted  and  parched  acres,  making  them  rich 
and  productive;  it  is  the  fertilizing  loam  of  the 
Nile  deposited  on  the  desert  sands  of  our  steriliz- 
ing wants  and  desires. 

Thus,  with  this  understanding  of  the  basis  and 
purpose  of  Christianity,  do  we  sift  out  the  prevail- 
ing mysticism  and  expunge  its  obscurantism  and 
symbolism.  A  definite  measure  is  adopted  in 
place  of  an  ambiguous,  elastic,  varying,  double- 
dealing  standard.  The  latter  is  as  baneful  to  the 
cause  of  religion  as  local,  ever-changing,  and  con- 
tinually fluctuating  standards  of  weights,  measures, 
and  coinage  would  be  in  our  commercial  life.  He 
who  cannot  devise  an  absolute  rule  or  standard  for 
the  measurement  of  religious  and  moral  values  is 
a  weary  wanderer  on  the  endless  shores  of  caprice 
and  fancy,  a  blind  mariner  on  a  foggy  sea;  his 
religion  is  a  nameless  afifair,  a  pretence  of  good- 
ness, a  mere  mirror  for  the  reflection  of  the  bril- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  139 

liant  lustre  of  its  enviable  possessors.  In  the  name 
of  virtue  and  religion  such  a  person  may  even  be 
enlisted  in  the  cause  of  crime.  But  "love"  —  as 
humiliation,  as  abnegation  of  life  —  can  be  under- 
stood, acted  and  appreciated  by  all.  No  mystic 
standard,  requiring  minister  or  priest,  church  or 
shrine,  rights  or  ceremonies,  is  necessary  for  its 
elucidation;  no  ambiguity  in  Greek  or  Latin  or 
Sanscrit  verse  obscures  its  meaning.  It  is  under- 
stood in  every  language.  Its  vivifying  influence 
permeates  every  race,  black  or  white  or  yellow. 
Its  star  sheds  its  brilliant  lustre  in  every  clime,  in 
the  south  as  in  the  north.  The  Wise  Men  of  the 
East  know  is  magic  spell  no  better  than  the  unciv- 
ilized of  the  West.  Thus  interpreted,  "Love"  is 
the  foundation-stone  of  every  religion  now  liv- 
ing, as  it  is  of  the  hundreds  already  dead  and  still 
to  come.  It  is  only  as  this  fundamental  truth  is 
lost  and  forgotten  that  religions  die.  Love  pro- 
duces the  same  conduct  in  Christian,  Mohamme- 
dan, Buddhist,  Hindoo,  and  Confucian  lands. 
Theist,  polytheist,  pantheist,  and  atheist  may  and 
do  worship  at  her  shrine.  Her  invocation  is  the 
fountain  of  peace  and  contentment.  Christ  taught 
it  in  its  most  sublime  form.     He  clothed  it  with 


140  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

Sunday  attire.  He  showed  us  the  way  of  its  appli- 
cation in  word  and  conduct.  Let  us  follow  His 
example! 

But  if  abnegation  is  not  expressly  taught  in  the 
good  book  as  the  sole  basis  of  love,  must  we  not 
necessarily  thus  deduce  it?  For,  how  can  we  love 
others  without  humiliating  ourselves?  Love  of 
self,  its  antithesis,  at  every  step  and  turn  conflicts 
with  the  like  instinct  of  others;  love  of  others,  in 
the  sense  of  abnegation  or  humiliation,  cements, 
attracts,  joins  together.  The  key  to  love  is  sub- 
mission, the  annihilation  of  will.  Not  my  will  but 
yours  —  this  is  love,  this  is  abnegation,  this  is 
Christianity,  this  is  every  Theology  —  this  is  relig- 
ion itself  —  so  simple  and  yet  so  great.  Selfishness 
goes  one  way,  unselfishness  the  other.  Pride  is  the 
world's  estate,  humility  religion's  legacy.  Mercy, 
charity,  beneficence,  graciousness  —  these  are  all 
species  of  the  same  genus,  abnegation  —  can  only 
be  measured  and  valued  by  the  quantum  of  this 
parent  virtue.  Abnegation  and  love,  they  are  the 
two  wings  of  the  Dove  of  Peace ;  the  portals  of  this 
earth  are  always  open  for  her  welcome;  the  Great 
Pylons  of  Janos  are  never  closed  on  her  there. 

A  voice: — But  how  can  everybody  negate  him- 
self?    It  is  an  impossible  ideal. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  141 

Mr.  Minister: — But  there  is  no  danger  that  all 
will  do  so.  The  carnal  man  will  always  be  with 
us!  What  is  the  value  of  an  ideal  within  the  reach 
of  any  and  all?  Just  the  height  of  our  ideal  is  its 
fascination  and  allurement,  its  nobility  and  gran- 
deur. 

This,  brethren,  then,  is  the  corner-stone  of  relig- 
ion. In  every  theology  the  lesson  is  occasionally 
forgotten,  only  to  be  retaught  and  relearned  after 
society  has  become  sufficiently  degenerate  and 
decayed.  Confucianism  arose  out  of  a  state  of  cor- 
ruption, Buddhism  sprang  from  an  emasculated 
Brahmanism,  Christianity  from  a  degenerate  Juda- 
ism, and  Mohammedanism  was  the  product  of 
internal  Christian  strife.  Each  of  these  theologies 
in  turn  have  had  their  ebb  and  flow,  their  day  of 
action  and  repose,  their  state  of  purity  and  corrup- 
tion, until  we  find  their  adherents  protesting 
against  the  old,  and  proclaiming  the  new  construc- 
tion of  the  same  doctrine.  Buddhism,  for  ex- 
ample, has  over  100  sects,  Mohammedanism  65, 
Christianity  about  150,  and  Brahmanism  embraces 
them  all  —  every  sect  and  every  creed.  In  Juda- 
ism the  Pharisees  were  not  always  pharisees.  At 
the  time  of  their  organization  they  arose  as  a  pro- 


142  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

test  to  the  then  prevailing  corruption.  So  undoubt- 
edly with  many  other  sects,  as  the  Nazarites,  the 
Talmudites,  the  Sadducees,  and  the  Samaritans. 

And  now  if  we  would  avoid  the  calamity  of  con- 
signing Christianity  to  final  repose,  the  forgotten 
lesson  of  the  cause  and  purpose  of  religion  must 
be  relearned.  The  relative  decrease  in  the  num- 
ber of  theological  students  compared  with  the  stu- 
dents of  other  sciences,  the  mad  intoxication  for 
material  things,  the  wild  carousal  of  sensual  indul- 
gence in  all  fields  of  worldly  desire,  the  filthy 
debauching  of  artistic  taste  in  literature,  and  paint- 
ing, and  sculpture  —  all  this  indicates  that  Chris- 
tianity is  undergoing  an  anarchy  of  form  and  an 
absolute  change  of  meaning.  Our  church  enroll- 
ment is  increasing  but  the  cost  of  spiritual  inspira- 
tion is  multiplying.  Our  churches  are  becoming 
the  monumental  palaces  of  the  debased  purposes 
of  the  age.  She  has  married  the  corruption  of  our 
day,  and  added  the  glitter  and  gloss  of  the  white 
and  yellow  dross  to  her  raiment. 

Matter  is  holding  dominion  over  us  —  not  mind. 
Who,  today,  would  die  for  his  faith  as  the  early 
Christians  did?  Who,  solely  for  the  sake  of 
example,  would  deny  all  pleasure  as  did  hundreds 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  143 

of  thousands  of  hermits,  monks,  and  nuns  in  the 
"dark"  ages?  Who  renounce  the  world?  The 
trouble  is  that  Christianity  is  now  at  peace  with 
the  world;  it  must  combat  it,  or  forever  remain 
impotent.  The  pursuit  of  worldly  things  can 
never  be  reconciled  with  the  object  of  religion;  the 
former  tends  towards  inequality;  the  latter  towards 
equality. 

But  some  of  you  may  not  be  religious  and  refuse 
to  weigh  your  pursuits  by  the  holy  edicts.  You 
may  think,  as  many  aver,  that  the  world  has  ever 
preached  altruism  and  practiced  egoism.  But  this 
is  not  so;  the  world  has  not  always  been  so  selfish 
and  commercial  as  it  is  today.  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Seneca,  Cicero,  for  instance,  all  condemn  interest. 
In  early  Judaic  times  property  in  land  was  not 
absolute;  it  was  conceived  as  belonging  to  God. 
No  individual  could  own  it  in  fee  simple;  he  could 
only  use  it.  If  through  poverty  or  misfortune  he 
temporarily  parted  with  its  possession  it  was 
returned  to  him  in  the  year  of  the  Jubilee.  Inter- 
est was  positively  forbidden  between  members  of 
God's  kingdom.  No  permanent  mortgage  indebt- 
edness was  possible  on  either  land  or  capital.  Both 
in  Grecian  and  Roman  days  trade  was  a  base  pur- 


144  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

suit  and  those  engaged  therein  were  the  lowest 
class  of  society.  Even  as  late  as  the  13th  century 
these  ideas  still  prevailed.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
one  of  the  ablest  writers  of  the  church,  said  that 
trade  was  base  and  even  sinful  when  carried  on 
for  the  sake  of  gain,  and  that  interest  should  not  be 
asked  of  the  borrower  of  money.  The  canon  law 
laid  down  the  proposition  that  private  property 
was  not  known  in  the  law  of  nature  and  that  all 
things  are  common  to  all  men.  How,  under  such 
conditions,  could  man's  avarice,  greed,  covetous- 
ness  find  vent  or  employment?  Is  the  desire  for 
the  ownership  of  things,  or  commercialism,  not 
the  basic  discord  to  the  harmony  of  men  and  the 
symphony  of  life?  Such  is  my  honest  opinion, 
brethren. 

Believing,  therefore,  that  the  love  of  worldly 
things  creates  all  evils  and  that  the  love  of  God  will 
cure  all,  you  can  readily  see  how  I  must  vote  on 
the  matter  before  us. 

I  vote  "Yes." 

"Self  renunciation  is  the  essence 
of  morality." — Schopenhauer. 

"Love  is  the  abnegation  and  for- 
getfulness  of  self." — F.  W.  Robert- 
son. 


"For  ever)'  grain  of  wit  there  is 
a  grain  of  folly.  For  everything 
you  have  missed,  you  have  gained 
something  else ;  and  for  everything 
you  gain,  you  lose  something.  If 
the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,  na- 
ture takes  out  of  the  man  what 
she  puts  into  his  chest ;  swells  the 
estate  but  kills  the  owner.  Nature 
hates  monopolies  and  exceptions." 
— R.  IV.  Emerson. 

PHILOSOPHER 

Gentlemen'. — 

I  speak  with  some  diffidence  on  this  subject  —  I 
feel  that  I  might  destroy  some  of  your  highly  cher- 
ished ideals.  Should  I  not  hesitate  under  such  cir- 
cumstances? Would  I,  in  such  case,  be  a  benefac- 
tor or  a  malefactor  of  my  race?  However  that 
may  be,  I  shall  urge  the  philosopher's  justification : 
The  search  for  truth  is  more  important  than  its 
possession. 

My  mode  of  thought  is  essentially  dififerent  from 


146  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

yours:  by  vocation  and  habit  I  am  accustomed  to 
clear  away  conventional  debris  of  popular  thought 
in  the  search  for  the  crooked  and  winding  paths 
leading  to  wisdom  and  reason.  I  am  no  idealist, 
as  all  of  you  appear  to  be;  that  is,  I  don't  see  but 
one  side  of  a  question ;  hence  I  am  no  enthusiast. 

What  each  of  you  advocates  as  a  Utopia,  I  pur- 
sue to  its  end,  to  its  logical  conclusion  —  I  reduce 
to  its  lowest  terms,  so  to  speak,  in  order  that  I  may 
know  whether  you  use  terms  advisedly  or  care- 
lessly. Accordingly  I  have  concluded  that  none 
of  you  really  mean  what  you  say.  You  express 
yourselves  in  glittering  generalities;  none  of  you 
really  advise  anything  of  a  definite  nature;  your 
point  of  view  is  narrow,  without  proper  considera- 
tion of  the  causes  and  relation  of  things.  Let  me 
briefly  particularize: 
(Minister)  First,    as    to    my   good-hearted    Mr.    Minister 

—  what  shall  I  say  of  him  who  estimates  things 
differently  from  each  of  you?  who  values  not 
this  world,  but  the  next?  He  says  substantially 
that  virtue  tends  towards  the  negation,  and  vice 
towards  the  affirmation  of  life.  Negation  he 
identifies  with  love  in  its  broad  sense,  namely, 
love    of    others;    and    affirmation    of    life    is,    to 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  i^j 

him,  pride,  selfishness,  love  of  self.  We  cannot 
criticise  him;  he,  at  least,  has  a  standard.  His 
religion  is  not  a  correction  of  this  world,  but  a  sev- 
erance from  it.  And,  if  the  next  world  be  more 
important  than  this,  he  is  right.  But  he  must  see, 
with  maturer  consideration,  that  all  people  cannot 
deny  life;  that  denial  by  some  necessarily  involves 
affirmation  by  others;  that  only  thus,  compara- 
tively, is  self-abnegation  a  virtue.  But  if  he  pos- 
tulate this  necessity  of  negation  by  some,  and  affir- 
mation by  others,  does  he  not  again  divide  society 
into  two  classes?  Does  he  not  then  provide  us 
with  an  aristocracy  of  '^negators,"  who  would  look 
with  disdain  and  contempt  upon  the  large  mass  of 
sinners,  as  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hermits 
and  ascetics  did  during  the  dark  ages?  His  love 
would  thereby  become  egoism  —  become  that 
which  he  would  avoid. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  the  social  mind, 
involved  wholly  in  speculation  concerning  the  next 
world,  must  necessarily  lose  sight  of  this:  our 
industry,  culture,  education,  science,  indeed,  our 
civilization,  must  suffer  an  abrupt  change  —  yes, 
it  must  even  retrogress  to  the  stage  of  primitive 
Christianity    and    modern    Brahmanism,    if    the 


148  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

attainment  of  the  next  world  be  our  primary 
purpose  in  this  one.  Contemplation  of  heavenly 
bliss  minimizes  the  joys  of  our  earthly  paradise; 
vice  versa:  to  locate  heaven  and  hell  here,  neces- 
sarily dispels  interest  in  the  immortal  days  to  come. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  the  idealistic  theologies  — 
those  with  an  ideal  impossible  of  attainment —  are 
a  mistake.  Confucianism,  alone,  of  all  existing 
theologies,  teaches  that  virtue  in  the  moral  world  is 
a  mean  between  two  extremes ;  that  extremes  in 
all  cases  are  to  be  avoided.  Neither  complete  self- 
renunciation  nor  full  affirmation,  neither  love  of 
others  nor  love  of  self,  neither  pride  nor  humility 
are  ideals;  true  morality  lies  somewhere  between. 
But  exactly  where,  nobody  can  tell,  or  will  ever 
know. 
(Tramp)  ]yjj.^    Tramp    may    lead    an    exemplary   life  — 

so  thousands  of  summer  sojourners  in  their  va- 
cation days  annually  testify.  But  can  it  be 
a  sole  ideal?  Can  we  all  be  tramps?  From 
which  provender  would  the  generous  house-wife 
satisfy  her  charitable  instincts?  Mr.  Tramp  can 
only  lead  his  life,  while  the  majority  of  mankind 
earn  their  bread  by  the  sweat  of  their  brow. 
Thrift  and  laziness,  avarice  and  dissoluteness  are 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  149 

all  vices  when  taken  in  big  doses,  and  virtues  when 
partaken  of  moderately.  The  true  life  is  some- 
where between  contentment  and  discontent,  be- 
tween work  and  rest,  between  leisure  and  play;  but 
who  ever  will  be  able  to  rigidly  define  their  limit? 

Mr.  Socialist  talks  much  of  the  brotherhood  (Socialist) 
of  man,  but  his  end  is  rather  the  brotherhood 
of  property.  He  pleads  for  the  socialization 
of  all  means  of  production;  but  this,  carried 
to  its  logical  conclusion,  would  mean  the  sacrifice 
of  the  selfish  instinct  —  the  destruction  of  the  idea 
of  property,  the  stifling  of  personal  endeavor. 
With  pride  gone,  what  is  left  of  the  idea  of 
gain,  or  the  sense  of  property?  The  socialization 
of  man  carried  to  its  utmost  limits  is  a  surrender 
of  self,  a  submission  of  one  to  the  other,  and  the 
other  to  the  one,  and  so  on  —  to  death  itself.  It 
necessarily  involves  more  centralization  of  govern- 
ment, and  a  corresponding  surrender  of  individual 
liberty.  Socialism  must  live  with  individualism; 
otherwise  there  is  no  virtue  in  either.  But,  at  what 
degree  do  we  reach  boiling  and  freezing  point  of 
human  endeavor?  Does  it  not  change  with  the 
seasons  of  time  and  with  the  state  of  our  moral  and 
intellectual  culture?  No  static  socialism  ever  will 
satisfy  or  indeed  be  socialism. 


150  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

Socialism  is  merely  a  movement,  a  process,  a 
tendency  towards  equality.  It  has  existed  in  all 
ages,  swaying  backward  and  forward.  In  some 
ages  greater  importance  is  attached  to  socialism;  in 
others,  to  individualism.  Athens  in  the  days  of 
her  glory  was  a  socialistic  city.  She  owned  and 
operated  land,  mines,  forests,  fields;  she  built 
temples,  baths,  theaters,  gymnasia;  she  controlled 
and  conducted  commerce,  art,  worship,  games;  the 
w^hole  Greek  social  conception  was  that  the  indi- 
vidual existed  for  the  state  rather  than  the  state 
for  the  individual.  Likewise  in  Judaism;  the  law 
defended  the  fatherless,  the  hireling,  the  stranger, 
the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  widows;  the  Essenes  in 
the  days  of  Christ  lived  in  communities  having  all 
property  in  common.  In  the  Christian  era  we 
have  the  early  attempt  at  communism  in  the  prim- 
itive churches;  and  later  the  monastic  institutions, 
which  w^ere  the  civilizing  centers  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Feudalism  was  the  prevailing  social  form; 
yet  its  harshness  was  tempered  by  the  duty,  more 
or  less  recognized,  of  the  feudal  lord  to  care  for 
and  protect  his  inferior.  Indeed,  no  fact  in  history- 
is  more  marked  than  the  persistence  of  the  social 
ideal  of  the  life  in  common.  Plato  dreamed  of 
such  a  community  in  his  "Republic;"  the  writings 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  151 

of  the  Christian  fathers  are  full  of  this  ideal.     It 
has  never  wholly  been  apart  from  human  thought. 

A  socialistic  element  is  found  in  all  legislation  — 
no  law  ever  was  passed  purely  to  oppress  people. 
There  is  more  than  a  grain  of  socialism  in  the  most 
extreme  individualism.  As  the  latter  is  advocated 
as  an  improvement  of  society,  so  likewise  is  the 
cause  of  socialism  urged  for  the  sake  of  the  indi- 
viduals composing  it.  Hence  we  might  say  that 
individualism  itself  is  a  species  of  socialism;  and, 
vice  versa,  socialism  is  a  grade  of  individualism. 
Even  the  most  radical  individualist  here,  our  dem- 
ocratic friend,  favors  denuding  land  of  its  privacy 
and  privilege  —  a  socialistic  movement  in  effect, 
and  hence  a  primary  and  fundamental  plank  in 
our  socialist's  platform. 

But  as  Mr.  Socialist  finds  life  in  love,  so  (democrat) 
Mr.  Democrat  finds  life  in  selfishness;  the  one 
would  socialize,  the  other  individualize  hu- 
manity; the  former  would  abolish  all  com- 
petition, the  latter  encourage  it.  But  a  free  field 
and  a  fair  fight  —  does  it  not  blight  the  finest  fruit 
of  human  effort?  In  this  free-for-all  fight,  is  not 
love  and  sympathy  a  forgotten  virtue?  Competi- 
tion has  become  a  worn-out  ideal;  the  activities  of 


152  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

financial  men  in  all  branches  of  industry  within  the 
last  twenty-five  years  proves  this,  and  public  opin- 
ion has  ratified  it. 

Yet,  while  the  public  conscience  declares  that 
competition  by  individuals  or  corporations,  as 
employers,  is  vicious  and  destructive  of  commercial 
progress,  it  has  decreed  that  competition  by  indi- 
viduals, as  employees,  is  a  virtue.  It  is  the  estab- 
lished law  that  the  unemployed  have  the  free  right 
to  labor, —  ridiculous  as  it  sounds,  for  who  wants 
to  labor?  An  empty,  valueless  right.  But  should 
this  right,  then,  not  remain  his  property,  even  when 
another  man  wants  his  job?  Public  opinion 
stamps  a  state  as  derelict  in  its  duty  when  it  refuses 
to  enforce  this  primary  and  most  sanctified  right 
of  each  man  to  compete  with  every  other.  Police, 
militia,  martial-law,  judge,  and  sheriff  —  these  are 
all  invoked  unhesitatingly  and  speedily,  whenever 
this  sacred  right  of  the  unemployed  to  labor  is 
threatened;  the  right  of  one  man  to  another's  job 
must  be  unquestioned.  "Competition  is  the  life 
of  trade"  among  men  —  among  laboring  men; 
but  consolidation  or  non-competition  is  the  life  of 
trade  —  among  employers.  An  unbiased  interpre- 
ter of  our  laws  must  logically  reach  the  conclu- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  153 

sion  that  the  debasement  of  labor,  and  not  merely 
its  competition,  is  the  present  social  ideal  —  per- 
haps thoughtlessly,  unconsciously,  but,  neverthe- 
less, effectively. 

"Every  man  for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the 
hindmost,"  is  pure  unadulterated  selfishness.  The 
world  never  will  consent  to  its  apotheosis.  Com- 
petition is  a  virtue  where  there  is  too  little  freedom 
of  trade.  Too  much  competition  is  as  unhealthy 
as  a  lack  of  it.  Over-competition,  as  well  as  under- 
competition,  is  the  death  of  our  industrial  and 
social  order,  a  waste  of  wealth,  and  a  blight  upon 
the  efforts  of  man.  Exactly  where,  between  these 
extremes  the  dimly  visible,  but  ever  receding,  El 
Dorado  may  be,  nobody  knows,  or  attempts  to  say 
in  intelligible,  definite  terms. 

Mr.  Laborer  has  aptly  and  in  glowing  terms  (Laborer) 
portrayed  the  progress  and  ascent  of  man,  a 
story  of  greatness  which  we  never  tire  of  hear- 
ing. We  feel  that  somehow  we  personally  are  the 
cause  of  it.  But  the  rise  of  the  cause  of  man  and 
his  labor  is  intimately  connected  with  the  rise  of 
property  —  they  are  twin-brothers  in  a  struggle  for 
supremacy.  As  man  has  become  free  of  the  lord 
of  the  manor  he  has  become  a  slave  of  property. 


154  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

Feudal  barons  no  longer  forcibly  compel  tribute, 
nor  do  slave  drivers  enchain  slaves;  but  the  obliga- 
tion of  service  is  the  germ  conceived  in  the  idea 
of  rent.  The  laborer  still  remains  obligor;  the 
obligee  has  merely  changed  his  name.  ''Land- 
lord" sounds  more  dignified  than  master  or  robber- 
baron. 

The  equality  of  man  was  preached  five  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  era;  Egyptian  monu- 
ments erected  4000  years  ago  are  full  of  such 
expressions  of  "love"  as  would  do  credit  to  any 
people  of  the  last  two  thousand  years;  and 
Cicero,  in  a  celebrated  speech,  said  "The  whole 
world  is  the  fatherhood  of  the  noble  minded."  But 
this  brotherhood,  in  every  age,  has  taken  on  and 
assumed  a  different  form.  Rome  and  Athens  had 
virtues  which  we  have  not;  and  the  "Love"  we 
boast  of,  they  had  not.  Speaking  radically,  how- 
ever, and  disregarding  these  distinguishing  forms, 
man's  real  and  essential  condition  of  fealty,  of  sub- 
serviency to  a  small  minority,  has  not  changed. 

On  the  other  hand,  is  the  absolute  equality 
of  man  desirable?  The  individualization  of  man 
sounds  nice,  and  we  like  to  think  of  drawing  the 
rich,  the  powerful,  down  to  our  own  mediocre  con- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  155 

ditions,  never  thinking  of  the  correlative  duty  of 
sharing  in  the  sorrows,  misery,  and  squalor  of  the 
many  more  needy.  There  are  those  below,  as  well 
as  above  us,  as  measured  in  material  possessions. 
The  idea  of  pulling  down  the  rich  to  our  level  can 
never  be  disassociated  from  the  uplifting  of  the 
less  fortunate.  Absolute  equality  of  man  is  as 
ruinous  of  strife  and  ambition,  as  destructive  of 
human  efifort  and  progress,  as  sterilizing  of  en- 
deavor and  pride  and  selfishness,  as  discouraging  of 
private  initiative  and  invention  as  absolute  inequal- 
ity would  be.  Inequality  is  the  non  sine  qua  of 
life,  the  absolute  condition  of  existence,  the  essence 
of  all  being  and  doing.  It  is  the  virile  force  gen- 
erating all  activit)^,  the  wind  that  fills  the  sails  of 
all  pursuit  and  endeavor  —  without  it  the  ship  of 
life  could  neither  navigate  the  calmest  sea,  nor  sur- 
vive the  slightest  storm.  Every  gain  of  science, 
every  advance  of  civilization  is  reared  on  individ- 
ual pride  and  vanity  —  the  piers  of  the  arch  of 
existence,  with  inequality  as  the  keystone. 

Then,  too,  we  must  not  forget  that  man's  gain  of 
greater  individualization  is  correlated  with  a  di- 
minishing power  and  influence  in  the  state  —  as  the 
federation  of  American  States  proved  and  China's 


156  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

present  condition  evidences.  A  strong  government 
means  a  weak  individual ;  and  strong  individuals 
signify  a  w^eak  state.  The  freedom  of  the  individ- 
ual conflicts  with  the  power  of  the  state  at  every 
turn;  for  instance,  the  state  passes  a  law  limiting 
the  hours  of  service  of  employees;  to  the  employee 
they  are  beneficial  from  a  moral  and  expedient 
standpoint,  but  injurious  from  a  political.  Such 
laws  augment  the  power  of  the  state,  but  depreci- 
ate the  power  of  the  individual  —  his  personal  lib- 
erty is  encroached  upon.  The  gain  in  one  respect 
becomes  a  loss  in  another. 

So  with  the  inequality  of  man  —  it  has  its  advan- 
tages as  well  as  disadvantages.  It  produces  humil- 
iation, toleration,  love,  unselfishness,  in  short,  the 
negative  virtues,  which  spring  from  the  man  who 
has  lost  hope  of  future  industrial  advancement. 
The  humble  alone  understand  the  grandest  of 
religious  injunctions:  "Do  unto  others  as  you 
would  be  done  by."  To  the  rich  —  never  being 
needy  or  in  want  —  the  thought  of  "how  they 
would  be  done  by"  never  occurs.  Hence  only  the 
poor  really  and  fully  learn  this  lesson  of  love  and 
sacrifice.  It  is,  likewise,  only  the  humble  —  and 
for  the  same  reason  —  who  understand  the  injunc- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  157 

tion:  "Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  It  is  only 
as  we  feel  the  injustice  of  others  that  we  think  of 
these  things.  Did  you  ever  see  anyone  who  would 
concede  that  he  was  conceited  —  that  he  loved 
himself?  Of  what  value  then  is  this  injunction 
except  to  the  oppressed,  the  lowly,  the  poor?  Oh! 
the  wealth  of  poverty,  physically,  mentally,  socially 
and  religiously  —  will  it  ever  be  appreciated? 
Three-fourths  of  mankind  are  subjects  of  her 
crown,  few  recognize  her  power,  all  lament  her 
cruel,  but  withal,  beneficent  reign. 

Mr.  Banker  and  his  wealth!  Well  may  he  (Banker) 
boast;  little  else  is  left  for  him.  The  indo- 
lence, the  pride,  the  arrogance  that  are  his  inher- 
itance, or  appurtenant  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth 
—  do  they  not  degrade  the  opulent?  Is  his  wealth 
not  the  unerring  and  unfailing  sign  of  the  coming 
degeneration  of  himself,  his  family,  and  their  off- 
spring? "Where  wealth  accumulates,  men  de- 
cay," says  Goldsmith.  Their  fate,  unquestionably, 
is  a  slow  deterioration  both  of  mind  and  of  body. 

Centralization  of  wealth  leads  to  centralization 
of  power —  the  imperialism  of  government.  Un- 
less the  wealth  of  a  country  is  possessed  by  a  large 
middle  class,  the  few  owners  seek  the  strong  arm 


158  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

of  government  for  the  protection  of  their  property 
and  assumed  rights.  This  arm  of  government  is 
maintained  only  by  a  strong  army,  by  the  centrali- 
zation of  the  powers  of  government,  and  the 
absorption  of  man's  individuality,  just  as  individ- 
ualism absorbs  the  powers  of  the  state  and  central- 
izes, aggrandizes  man.  No  nation  or  individual 
so  quickly  learns  self-control,  as  that  without 
weapon  or  power.  Disproportionate  wealth  leads 
to  an  aristocracy,  and  this,  finally,  to  a  monarchy. 
This  is  the  story  of  history  over  and  over  again. 

But  Mr.  Banker  wants  an  accumulation  of  cap- 
ital so  that  we  can  manufacture  cheaper  and  send 
more  abroad.  Such  talk  is  really  very  chestnutty. 
If  we  send  more  goods  and  money  abroad  than  we 
import,  goods  and  money,  we  are  getting  poorer, 
aren't  we?  So  England  thinks,  and  so  every  mer- 
chant knows.  During  the  year  1903  England 
imported  over  $1,200,000,000  more  value  than  she 
exported;  yet  her  imports  of  gold  and  silver  bul- 
lion always  exceed  her  exports.  She  doesn't 
want  any  of  our  economical  wisdom.  If  all  we 
send  abroad  were  paid  for  in  gold,  as  the  modern 
capitalist  perhaps  believes,  we  would  import  annu- 
ally about  $450,000,000  in  gold;  the  fact  is,  how- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  159 

ever,  that  our  imports  and  exports  of  the  metals 
generally  about  offset  each  other. 

But,  suppose  the  excess  of  exports  were  paid  for 
in  gold  and  silver,  what  would  be  the  effect?  Would 
such  a  condition  be  desirable?  What  would  be 
the  result  of  such  additions  to  our  stock  of  primary 
money?  It  would  raise  prices  so  high  at  home, 
and  cheapen  prices  and  labor  so  much  abroad,  that 
the  increased  prices  at  home  and  the  reduced  prices 
abroad  would  necessarily  send  foreign  goods  over 
here;  and  if  a  tariff  temporarily  interfered  with  the 
operation  of  this  law,  through  the  continual  inflow 
of  fabulous  sums  of  gold  and  silver,  the  prices 
would  become  still  higher  each  successive  year  at 
home,  and  still  lower  abroad,  until  the  difference 
in  prices  would  surmount  the  highest  monument 
protection  ever  yet  has  reared  to  the  inequality  of 
man.  An  equality  of  prices  in  the  respective  coun- 
tries would  thereupon  be  effected  by  increased  im- 
portations, through  industry  abroad  and  its  stagna- 
tion at  home.  Our  statistics  prove  this.  And, 
even  if  goods  were  not  imported  immediately,  can 
you  not  see  that  the  high  prices,  caused  by  the 
importation  of  so  much  gold,  would  induce  the 
emigration  to  our  land  of  men,  against  whom  there 


i6o  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

is  no  tariff?  These  men  would  then  compete  with 
our  labor,  which,  again,  would  tend  to  equalize 
conditions. 

Is  it  not  about  time  we  legislate  for  increased 
consumption  instead  of  increased  production?  You 
say  that  it  is  the  same  thing.  Well,  then,  try  it! 
Let  the  ideal  be  cheap  food,  cheap  clothes,  cheap 
rent!  Let  that  be  primary,  not  secondary.  The 
consuming  power  of  the  American  people  is  be- 
yond the  wildest  dreams  of  the  American  pro- 
ducer. Their  still  unsatisfied  consuming  power  is 
a  hundred-fold  that  of  any  9,000,000  yellow,  white 
or  colored,  tropical  or  semi-tropical  people.  It 
is  a  home  market.  It  is  close  by.  It  is  acquired 
most  cheaply.  It  requires  not  the  expenditure  of 
one  billion  of  dollars  in  rusty  ironclads  for  its 
acquisition;  no  soldiers,  bayonets  or  guns  for  its 
forcible  retention.  It  would  be  a  permanent  asset. 
It  would  yield  the  greatest  return.  It  would  be 
the  most  noble  expansion.  It  would  not  only 
reflect  glory,  but  also  add  strength  to  our  nation. 
The  stars  of  the  American  banner  would  again 
shed  their  luster  in  the  van  of  progress  and  civil- 
ization. I  favor  imperialism  of  the  American 
consumer.     If  we  can  conquer  him,  we  have  added 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  l6l 

an  empire  of  wealth  to  a  republic  of  sense ;  benevo- 
lent assimilation  to  a  beneficent  union. 

Undoubtedly  some  of  you  think  with  the  ma- 
jority of  our  people,  that  the  American  market  is 
already  supplied,  that  the  American  people's  wants 
are  already  satisfied,  their  purchasing  power  ex- 
hausted before  the  exportation  commences.  A 
very  narrow  vision,  gentlemen!  The  American 
consumer's  capacity  —  as  his  literary  and  psychical 
appetite,  so  with  his  physical  wants  —  is  unlim- 
ited. The  wearing  apparel  of  himself  and  family, 
the  necessities  and  luxuries  of  the  table,  the  ele- 
gance of  his  fireside,  the  eloquence  of  his  book- 
shelf, his  longings  for  travel,  the  duration  of  his 
vacations  —  whose  mind  is  so  bare,  whose  imagin- 
ation so  sterile,  whose  thought  so  fettered  not  to 
see  that  no  man  —  not  even  the  Czar  of  Russia, 
with  his  $100,000,000  annual  income  —  can  satisfy 
every  want?  Everybody's  wants  exceed  their 
ability  to  supply  them;  they  expand  and  multiply 
with  our  means  of  satisfying  them.  You  need  but 
to  read  history  to  find  that  the  average  man  "con- 
sumes" ten  times  as  much  wool  and  cotton,  twice  as 
much  meat,  five  times  as  much  fruit,  three  times 

as  many  shoes,  etc.,  as  he  did  one  hundred  years 
11 


162  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ago.  Ladies  wear  silks  and  satins,  where  formerly 
they  were  contented  with  calico  and  homespun. 
Men  who  formerly  wore  patched  canvas  misfits, 
nowjiress  in  the  finest,  woolen  tailor-mades.  Where 
one  hat  lasted  two  years,  the  same  man  requires 
two  each  year.  Where  men  formerly  wore  dog- 
skin gloves,  they  now  wear  undressed  kid.  Now 
we  ride  where  we  formerly  walked.  Saturday  half 
holidays,  Sunday  excursions  and  July  vacations 
take  the  place  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five' 14 
hour  days  of  annual  drudgery.  There  is  no  limit 
to  man's  capacity  to  consume  except  his  ability  to 
produce.  Kings  and  queens,  without  physical 
exercise,  with  all  their  wants  anticipated,  without 
hunger,  still  have  appetites  costing  thousands  of 
dollars  monthly  to  satisfy;  the  cloth  buttons  of  their 
servants  they  would  replace  with  brass,  and  one 
palace  of  pine  and  silver  does  not  satisfy  regal 
greed  and  avarice  as  would  a  half  dozen  of  rose- 
wood and  gold. 

Our  balance  of  trade,  big  as  it  is,  amounts  to  but 
about  5'^''  of  the  total  American  production.  The 
man  who  cannot  find  5^°  more  wants  at  home,  is 
mentally  and  hopelessly  deranged.  How  shall  we 
go  about  it?     Start  with  these  fundumental  tenets: 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  163 

First,  That  man  cannot  produce  as  much  as  he  can 
consume,  rather  than  vice  versa.  Second,  That, 
to  the  extent  that  he  does  produce  more  than  he 
consumes,  a  natural  law  is  violated;  somebody, 
either  the  state  or  individuals,  takes  it  away  from 
him.  Third,  To  consume  more  than  we  produce 
is  a  better  ideal  than  to  produce  more  than  we 
consume.  After  you  have  these  fundamental  tru- 
isms thoroughly  engrafted  on  your  mind  as  a 
basis,  you  will  readily  find  application  for  them; 
the  mist  of  tariffs,  reciprocities,  navies,  and  all 
other  diseases  of  our  social  body,  will  disappear 
like  a  fog  before  a  northern  wind. 

The  signers  of  our  constitution  understood  this 
principle.  They  provided  that  no  tariff,  except 
for  revenue,  should  ever  be  adopted ;  but  a  cunning 
and  hypocritical  aristocracy  has  found  ways  and 
means  of  skilfully  evading  this  provision,  although 
it  involve  our  administrative  and  legislative  de- 
partments in  the  practice  of  fraud  and  deceit,  and 
commit  our  judicial  department  to  the  deaf  and 
dumb  asylum  —  for,  how  else  shall  we  charac- 
terize the  failure  of  our  courts  to  take  ''judicial 
notice"  of  such  patent,  public,  notorious,  hypoc- 
ricy? 


164  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

The  fathers  of  our  country  believed  that  con- 
sumption at  home,  by  an  American  citizen,  was 
worth  far  more  than  its  enjoyment  by  a  foreigner 
—  that  we  should  enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  foreign- 
er's cheap  labor  and  not  he  take  all  the  advantages 
of  our  skill  and  natural  opportunities.  They  legis- 
lated for  increased  consumption;  our  laws  are  all 
for  a  greater  production.  Were  they  not  more 
right  than  we? 

Mr.  Banker  speaks  of  our  large  bank  deposits. 
Well,  of  course,  it  isn't  proper  to  speak  of  "we,'* 
when  only  one  person  in  ten  has  a  deposit,  and 
when  of  this  small  percentage,  a  single  class  may 
have  ten  accounts.  Then,  too,  this  is  individual 
wealth.  Let  us  not  forget  that  large  individ- 
ual wealth  may,  and  generally  does,  mean 
poverty  of  social  wealth.  Suppose  that,  instead 
of  our  boasting  of  the  possession  of  billions  of 
capital  in  private  railroads,  and  in  private  banks, 
and  in  private  insurance,  and  in  private  telegraphs, 
and  in  private  express  companies,  etc.,  these  should 
all,  through  wise  measures  become  governmental 
state  institutions.  Billions  of  private  capital 
would  disappear,  while  the  institution  (the  prop- 
erty these  companies  really  own  is  not  worth  lo*^" 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  165 

of  their  capital  stock)  would  remain.  The  social 
wealth  is  far  greater,  for  example,  in  Germany 
than  in  the  United  States.  Should  we  nationalize 
all  the  ventures  which  are  public  there,  at  least 
$20,000,000,000  of  capital  stock  would  become 
social,  and  nowhere  would  it  appear  as  an  asset. 
As  to  this  splendid  capital  stock  of  these  quasi- 
public  corporations  and  large  trusts  —  if  a  progres- 
sive income  tax  were  levied  tomorrow;  or  if  all 
taxes  would  suddenly  become  direct  and  should 
r  be  levied  on  land  only  at  its  value  as  now  estimated 

by  these  stock-holders,  and,  then,  if  all  indirect 
taxes  should  be  abolished,  what  would  become  of 
this  capital  stock?  This  mythical,  fantastic  wealth 
would  vanish  in  a  single  night,  as  surely  as  the 
morning  dawn  disappears  before  a  rising  sun.  Do 
you  not  see  that  capital  stock,  generally  speaking, 
is  merely  the  present  worth  of  the  legalized  power 
of  exaction,  capitalized  at  6^°  annual  return,  for 
time  indefinite?  If  we  have  the  largest  combina- 
tions in  the  world  it  is  because  they  have  the  most 
power  here,  because  they  are  exempt  from  those 
restrictions  and  burdens  on  them  usually  imposed 
in  other  lands.  They  pay  no  income  tax,  nor  rent 
tax,  scarcely  any  personal  tax;  their  issued  bonds 
generally  go  scot  free,  as  well  as  their  big  capital 


1 66  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

stock.  Even  the  few  direct  taxes  which  they  do 
pay  are  evaded  by  shifting  them  upon  others.  This 
explains  the  number  and  size  of  our  trusts  —  and 
this  only. 

Compare  the  present  condition  of  our  country 
with  that  of  fifty  years  ago.  Then  we  had  the  same 
amount  of  land,  but  it  had  little  value.  We  had 
oil  wells,  but  they  had  no  value.  We  had  then  all 
the  coal,  iron,  copper,  gold,  and  silver  mines  we 
have  now,  but  they  had  no  value.  But  we  have,  in 
this  broad  expanse  of  God's  most  bountiful  country, 
more  men  and  more  energy,  and  that  only  is  wealth. 
And  should  our  population  increase  within  the 
next  50  years  as  it  has  during  the  last  half  of  the 
19th  century,  every  coal  and  iron  mine  —  indeed, 
every  patch  of  land,  be  it  ever  so  poor  —  will  in- 
crease enormously  in  value.  Its  real  value  will  be 
no  greater,  but  the  wants  and  necessities  of  a  larger 
population  will  grow,  and  consequently  increased 
opportunity  for  their  exploitation  will  be  appur- 
tenant to  the  ownership  of  these  things.  The 
amount  of  ready  labor  seeking  investment  is  the 
measure  of  the  value  of  the  capital  stock  of  land 
and  its  products  as  well  as  all  rights  in,  under,  over, 
and  out  of  the  land.     Let  all  men  work  only  one- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  167 

half  time  in  our  country,  or  let  one-half  of  our 
population  emigrate,  and  one-half  of  our  boaster's 
value  would  take  wings.  If  Mr.  Banker  has  dem- 
onstrated anything,  it  is  that  individual  wealth  is 
social  poverty;  that  wealth,  in  truth,  is  power  in 
somebody,  and  a  corresponding  obligation  of  serv- 
ice in  others.  It  follows  as  logically  as  night 
does  day,  that  extreme  riches  conditionextremepov- 
erty;  that  great  consolidations  of  capital  increase 
the  great  army  of  unemployed  and  paupers  —  we 
might  almost  say  that  such  is  its  object;  for,  should 
labor  secure  greater  power  by  capital's  consolida- 
tion, the  latter  would  never  be  effected  —  that's  a& 
plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face. 

But,  if  all  this  so-called  wealth  should  vanish, 
our  venerable  Mr.  Banker  wishes  to  know  what 
retired  gentlemen  would  do  for  investments.  That 
is  very  simple:  They  would  not  retire  so  early, 
and  when  they  did,  it  would  not  be  so  indifferently. 
Would  that  be  a  calamity?  They  would  be  com- 
pelled to  invest  their  money  in  real  industry,  and 
watch  it  more  carefully.  Now,  they  are  simply 
waiting  for  the  European  pauper  to  enrich  his 
stock  company.  With  their  money  invested  in 
real  industry,  and  not  in  mere  power  of  exaction 


1 68  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

or  tribute  or  monopoly,  they  would  be  concerned 
forever  in  production  and  progress.  This  concern, 
gentlemen,  is  life  —  life  for  the  producer  and 
health  for  the  state;  his  unconcern  is  his  death  and 
the  state's  disease.  They  go  hand  in  hand,  are  one 
and  inseparable. 

The  conditions  of  poverty,  disease,  and  inequal- 
ity will  ever  give,  to  the  true  American,  occupation 
of  the  noblest  kind,  until  his  final  resting  day.  It 
is  only  so  long  as  the  retired  man  seeks  to  hold  what 
he  has  and  to  acquire  more,  that  pains  and  penalties 
are  invited  and  visited  upon  him,  and  wasting 
death  beckons  him  away  to  her  dark  and  gloomy 
corner. 

(Republican)  Mr.  Republican  —  who  would  have  believed, 
without  his  telling  us,  that  the  Mississippi 
flows,  the  Alleghenies  rise,  and  wheat  grows 
solely  through  his  labor;  that  the  sun  rises 
and  the  clouds  weep  at  his  suggestion.  To  listen 
to  his  boasting,  one  would  think  he  were  the  Crea- 
tor of  land  and  sea,  and  that  our  constitution  ema- 
nated from  his  fertile  brain  —  the  fact  being  that 
he  emigrated  from  Austria  only  six  years  ago,  and 
that  he  became  an  American  citizen  by  adoption 
but  two  months  ago.     Apparently  fortune  has  dealt 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  169 

kindly  with  him ;  for  his  plea  is  the  boasting  prattle 
of  the  possessed,  the  idle  babble  of  the  satiated, 
who  are  always  happy  and  contented  with  the  old ; 
they  do  not  crave  the  new,  they  fear  it.  This  kind 
of  bluff  is  sometimes  called  optimism;  but  the  satis- 
fied and  contented  never  have  contributed  to  the 
progress  of  the  world.  Never  has  the  contented 
mind  counted  for  anything  but  retrogression — bag- 
gage on  the  backs  of  the  discontented  and  dis- 
gruntled, on  their  onward  march  up  the  hills  of 
adversity.  "Let  well  enough  alone"  is  the  paraly- 
sis of  effort  and  struggle  and  progress.  They  are 
retrogressionists ;  the  pessimists,  the  progressionists. 

This  kind  of  boasting  is  also  sometimes  called 
patriotism.  Our  country  does  possess  institutions 
which  are  the  product  of  the  combined  wisdom  of 
all;  these  I  glory  in.  But  as  to  this  material 
wealth,  that  is  "ours"  —  it  is  not  mine,  nor  yours. 
Why  should  I  exult  in  that  which  may  serve  as  my 
oppression?  Vainglorious  pride  and  vociferous 
patriotism  have  been  the  sport  of  feeble  and  intox- 
icated minds  in  every  land  and  in  all  ages.  Every 
country  glories  in  something  which  it  finds  lacking 
in  others.  The  bureaucracy  of  Russia  boasts  of  its 
strength,  of  its  immunity  from  popular  representa- 


lyo  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

tion;  the  Prussian  boasts  of  his  military  excellence; 
the  Frenchman  boasts  of  the  elasticity  of  his  gov- 
ernment; the  Indian  of  his  negation  of  will,  his 
contentment  and  quiescence ;  theChinese  of  his  gov- 
ernment through  love  and  intellect;  the  Japanese  of 
his  religious  toleration.  Each  of  these  boasts  is 
justified  in  part.  But  our  boasting  ceases  when  we 
learn  that  efficiency  and  merit  in  one  respect  is 
necessarily  the  predicate  of  deficiency  and  demerit 
in  other  respects. 

Patriotism,  as  love  of  country,  is  a  virtue,  decried 
by  almost  every  Grecian  and  Roman  philosopher, 
and  by  the  grand  literary  lights  of  modern  times. 
As  we  get  to  know  men  of  other  climes  and  coun- 
tries, as  we  become  familiar  with  their  wants  and 
aspirations,  and  find  that  the  human  heart  beats 
in  one  accord,  the  same  tune  the  whole  world  over, 
we  become  cosmopolitan,  not  metropolitan ;  inter- 
national not  national  —  love  and  reason  then  de- 
throne pride  and  ignorance. 

He  lauds  the  American  fireside,  the  number  of 
marriages,  and  the  size  of  our  families;  but  he 
does  not  seek  their  causes,  which  when  examined, 
dispel  all  self-congratulation.  They  are  briefly 
as  follows:     ist.     About  tsvo  million  more  men 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  171 

than  women  live  within  our  territory,  while  in 
Europe  the  tables  are  generally  turned  about;  in 
Germany,  for  example,  there  are  about  one  million 
more  women  than  men.  This  explains  the  menial 
service  of  woman  there,  her  relatively  lower  station 
of  life,  the  large  per  cent  of  illegitimacy,  and  many 
other  social  diseases.  2nd.  The  foreign  immi- 
grant generally  arrives  single,  and  marries  soon 
afterwards.  3rd.  Land  is  cheaper,  and  oppor- 
tunity for  the  maintenance  of  a  family  far  better. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  were  the  population  in 
the  U,  S.  as  dense  as  that  of  France,  we  should 
have,  excluding  Alaska,  555,000,000;  if  as  dense  as 
Germany  658,000,000;  if  as  dense  as  that  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  1,452,000,000. 

Whether  our  large  families  should  swell  our 
national  bosom  with  pride  depends  upon  very 
many  questions.  When  we  entertain  the  belief  that 
competition  is  already  too  keen,  that  mental  and 
physical  suffering  are  already  too  great,  we  are 
inclined  to  believe  in  small  families ;  the  care  of  the 
needy,  forsaken,  and  deserted  then  excites  our  sym- 
pathy and  attention.  But  when  we  harbor  the 
opinion  that  little  misery  prevails,  that  joy  and 
pleasure  await  the  new-born,  then  every  child  is  an 


172  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

additional  asset  to  its  parent  and  the  state.  Nor 
is  it  any  reply  that  the  parents  are  wealthy  and  can 
afford  to  care  for  their  children.  If  there  are 
already  too  many  people  on  this  earth,  then  each 
child  of  opulent  parents  becomes  an  additional 
competitor;  except  for  such  birth,  the  parents  could 
and  would  render  greater  assistance  to  the  children 
of  the  misguided,  the  ignorant,  the  unfortunate. 

And  who  will  say  that  the  rearing  of  a  family 
is  a  virtue  from  any  other  standpoint  than  its  effect 
upon  the  state,  the  common  welfare?  Hegel,  the 
noted  German  philosopher,  says  that  marriage,  for 
any  other  purpose  than  its  beneficial  effect  on  the 
state  and  mankind,  is  no  better  than  the  grossest 
concubinage,  that  it  is  plain,  unadulterated  self- 
indulgence.  Assuming,  however,  that  little  misery 
really  exists  and  that  "there  is  always  room  for  one 
more,"  must  not  this  equivocal  virtue  be  measured 
by  the  value  of  the  child's  life  to  society?  Will  it 
leave  society  better  or  worse  because  of  its  being? 
As  this  is  answered  yea  or  nay  will  depend  the 
ethical  value  of  our  large  families.  The  so-called 
"upper  crust"  in  every  civilized  land  contend 
against  large  families;  the  higher  the  culture,  the 
smaller  the  family.     It  is  so  in  England,  France, 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  173 

and  Germany.  In  our  own  country  statistics  show 
a  gradual  decline  in  the  birth-rate  not  only  among 
the  rich  and  opulent,  but  even  generally. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  uncivilized  South  Afri- 
can has  families  of  fifteen  and  twenty.  The  rich 
and  elite  of  every  land,  as  a  rule,  have  the  smallest 
encumbrance.  They  wish  to  travel,  to  get  rich, 
to  enjoy  material  things;  the  "intellectuals"  seek 
satisfaction  and  contentmxCnt  in  books.  The  moral  of 
Malthus  is  practised  not  by  the  poorer  class,  who 
are  prolific,  but  by  the  well-to-do  classes,  who  are 
systematically  sterile.  Dr.  Billings  and  Dr.  Edson 
have  recently  investigated  quite  thoroughly  the 
diminishing  birth-rate,  especially  in  the  United 
States,  and  its  causes.  The  generalization  tenta- 
tively reached  by  them  is  that  civilization  in  gen- 
eral checks  the  rate  of  increase  of  population,  in 
spite  of  a  diminishing  death-rate;  that  city  life  is 
on  the  whole  unfavorable  to  the  natural  increase  of 
population,  and  that  what  the  economists  call  the 
"raising  of  the  standard  of  life"  operates  in  the 
same  way.  Does  this  evidence  not  efface  the  glory 
of  our  Mr.  Republican's  loud  boast  in  the  Amer- 
ican family  and  fireside? 

Mr.    Artist    pleads    for    aristocratic    art,    and         (Artist) 


1/4  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

the  creation  of  a  class  to  give  it  direction. 
Kings,  indeed,  do  lend  aid  to  art,  but  such  support 
is  a  mere  trifle  of  the  enormous  salaries  they  cause 
to  be  voted  to  themselves  out  of  the  general  treas- 
ury. The  Czar  of  Russia  receives  about  $12,000,- 
000;  the  Kaiser  of  Germany  about  $4,000,000;  the 
King  of  England  over  $2,500,000;  the  emperor  of 
Austria-Hungary  about  $4,000,000;  the  King  of 
Italy  about  $3,000,000;  the  King  of  Saxony,  a 
Kingdom  of  about  four  million  population,  re- 
ceives about  $735,000,  which  is  double  the  aggre- 
gate salaries  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
and  all  the  Governors  of  the  States,  namely,  about 
$300,000.  Even  the  King  of  little  Greece  draws 
more  salary  than  all  our  Governors  together,  to- 
wit:  $260,000.  How  any  people  can  vote  millions 
to  kings,  and  go  into  ecstacy  over  the  gracious 
return  of  a  few  thousands  by  way  of  bounties  in 
support  of  theaters  and  court-flattering  artists,  is 
beyond  my  comprehension. 

The  penalty  mankind  pays,  in  this  royal  support 
of  art,  is  that  its  tendency  and  direction  become 
kingly,  aristocratic,  and  effeminate.  That  art  which 
cannot  appeal  to  healthy,  normal,  active-minded 
men,  and  receive  their  unbiased  support,  should 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  175 

die  —  it  has  no  value ;  it  serves  no  broad,  democra- 
tic purpose,  it  becomes  merely  the  sport  of  the  idle 
and  immoral. 

The  gentleman's  notion  of  art  is  very  circum- 
scribed. He  talks  of  art  as  some  mystic,  magic, 
dark  lantern  process,  into  the  secrets  of  which 
only  the  elite  are  initiated,  together  with  a  con- 
ceited royalty,  who  direct  its  purpose  and  sphere. 
Art  is  merely  the  transference  of  feelings  of  one 
person  to  another,  by  whatever  means.  Under  this 
definition,  everybody  is  an  artist;  its  execution,  its 
elegance,  its  value  is  another  thing.  It  thrives  best 
where  it  is  free  and  democratic,  not  aristocratic. 
It  should  teach  and  instruct,  not  merely  please, 
says  Aristotle,  Aristocratic,  courtly  art  has  never 
yet  been  enlisted  in  elevating  mankind.  It  has 
never  been  the  inspiration  and  incitement  to  a  sin- 
gle noble  deed  of  a  single  individual.  In  all  the 
galleries  of  Eujrope,  the  highest  and  the  most 
enduring  art  is  that  which  has  had  the  sanction  of 
the  people,  that  which  is  the  source  of  universal, 
religious  inspiration,  hope,  and  contentment.  If 
the  gentlemen  will  read  the  earnest,  studious,  and 
finished  thoughts  on  this  art  subject  by  Milton  or 
Ruskin,  or  better  still,  of  Tolstoi,  he  will  get  an- 


176  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

other  notion  of  the  significance  of  this  much  abused 
term. 

Mr.  Retailer  contends  in  effect,  that  the  bus- 
iness ideal  should  be  the  greatest  possible  num- 
ber of  small,  independent  dealers,  and  a  cor- 
relative diminished  number  of  large  dealers. 
Such  an  ideal  omits  from  consideration  all  that 
grand  saving  of  social  waste,  which  these  large 
corporations  are  daily  affecting  —  the  moving 
cause  of  their  organization.  The  realization  of  an 
end  through  the  least  effort,  is  the  rule  of  man  and 
society,  the  stimulant  and  cause  of  all  progress. 
Can  we  strike  that  axiom  from  the  list  of  civilized 
aims  with  impunity? 

He  says  that  the  poor  are  getting  poorer,  and  the 
rich,  richer.  But  how  can  that  be  proven?  Rich 
and  poor  are  relative  terms.  If  all  fortunes  were 
multiplied  by  two,  would  anybody  be  richer?  And 
those  who  are  rich,  from  the  standpoint  of  pros- 
perity, are  they  not  paupers  from  the  angle  of 
adversity?  The  Bank  of  Prosperity  pays  one  kind 
of  interest,  the  Bank  of  Adversity  another.  History 
is  but  the  continual  reiteration  of  the  insolvency 
and  bankruptcy  of  the  one  in  favor  of  the  creditors 
of  the  other;  the  latter  in  all  cases  becomes  trustee 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  ijj 

and  liquidator  of  the  waste  and  extravagance  of  the 
former.  Prosperity  develops  the  repulsive  quali- 
ties of  the  human  nature;  it  produces  satiety  or  a 
fat  heart.  Only  in  the  cradle  of  adversity  is  love, 
and  sympathy,  and  generosity  nursed  and  reared. 

The  much  abused  Mr.  Landlord  —  shall  we  (Landlord) 
throw  him  out  upon  the  ash-heap?  Is  he  a 
boon  or  a  bane  to  society?  If  he  administers  his 
own  estate  personally  and  thereby  earns  money, 
some  say  he  is  a  producer,  and  therefore  a  benefit 
to  society.  But,  by  continuing  to  accumulate,  is 
he  not  taking  the  bread  from  some  one  else's 
mouth?  Would  such  added  accumulation  further 
the  equality  of  man?  On  the  other  hand,  some 
maintain  that  if  he  does  not  administer  his  own 
estate,  he  is  a  consumer  and  not  a  producer,  and 
therefore  a  wart  on  society.  But,  does  his  refusal 
to  produce  not  tend  more  towards  equality  than 
continued  production?  Indeed,  is  not  the  lack  of 
the  spur  of  necessity  positive  evidence  of  the  com- 
ing degeneracy  of  himself  and  his  posterity?  And 
is  not  his  estate  thereby  hastening  on  to  the  broad 
avenues  of  uniformity  and  equality? 

As  to  the  propriety  of  discouraging  excessive 
speculation  and  undue  property  in  land,  I  fully 


178  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

agree  with  Mr.  Democrat.  But  this  is  only  a  par- 
tial remedy.  His  scheme  would  only  partially 
abolish  the  present  evils.  It  would  not  destroy 
inequality,  although  it  might  restore  juster  condi- 
tions, giving  added  opportunity  to  willing  labor, 
which  is  certainly  an  ideal  worth  striving  for. 

Mr.  Landlord  calls  John  D.  Rockefeller  a  "self- 
made  man,"  etc.  Nothing  could  be  more  inappro- 
priate. Man  can  exist  only  in  society;  it  creates 
him  and  his  wealth.  Not  a  single  silver  dollar 
nor  a  copper  cent  has  value,  except  as  man  may  use 
it  in  society.  All  wealth  is  merely  others'  opinion 
or  estimation  of  the  value  of  desired  things;  in 
other  words,  a  social  evaluation.  Rockefeller's 
individuality  and  wealth  w^re  made  out  of,  in, 
through,  and  by  society,  and  it  should  be  for  so- 
ciety. If  this  is  an  exaggeration  of  the  creative 
value  of  society's  fiat,  it  is  no  greater  than  Mr. 
Landlord's  exaggeration  of  individualistic  power. 

Mr.  Landlord  likewise  speaks  of  Rockefeller's 
wealth  not  being  made  in  land  speculation,  but, 
through  industry.  I  cannot  agree  with  him.  Rock- 
efeller's wealth  depends  entirely  on  title-deeds  in 
land  —  the  implied  agreement  with  the  state  that 
it  will  keep  all  others  off  of  certain  lands,  except 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  179 

himself  and  his  appointees.  It  is  all  landordism 
—  shoving  the  other  fellow  off  of  the  earth  except 
he  pay  for  the  privilege. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Farmer  has  (Farmer) 
struck  the  key-note  of  our  present  industrial 
activity:  the  basis  of  trade  is  gain,  an  advan- 
tage of  the  buyer  over  the  seller,  or  vice- 
versa.  The  invocation  of  the  golden  rule  as  a 
business  basis  is  the  rearing  of  a  monument  to  the 
decease  of  all  commercial  life.  "Do  unto  others 
as  you  would  be  done  by"  would  prevent  every 
sale,  every  bargain,  every  purchase.  The  purpose 
of  every  sale  is  to  get  more  value  than  you  give, 
and  of  every  purchase  to  give  less  than  you  get. 
Advantage  in  trade  corresponds  to  pride  in  social 
conduct;  as  the  latter  is  necessary  for  the  life  of 
the  individual  and  society,  so  the  former  is  a 
prerequisite  to  industrial  activity.  Of  course,  we 
often  slip  up  in  our  appraisement  of  these  advan- 
tages. For  instance,  our  foreign  exports  of  money 
and  goods  exceed  our  imports  by  $500,000,000.  The 
difference  is  accounted  for  in  great  part  by  the  fact 
that  our  sons  go  to  Europe  for  an  education,  and 
our  daughters  to  learn  art,  when  in  truth  we  have 
the  best  of  these  things  at  home.     All  this  business 


i8o  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

must  be  paid  for  out  of  real  productive  business, 
and  in  our  country  it's  the  farmer  who  provides 
us  with  the  most  genuine  unadulterated  exchange. 
Without  his  productive  business  we  would  be  com- 
pelled to  stay  out  of  these  unproductive  ones.  Even 
our  big  exports  of  manufactures  are  based  on  his 
good-will ;  for,  as  these  exports  are  possible  only 
by  the  manufacturer  charging  a  high  price  at  home 
and  a  low  one  abroad,  we  can  readily  see  that  Mr. 
Farmer's  prosperity  solely  conditions  our  large 
exports  of  manufactured  goods. 

Not  only  are  we  seeking  an  advantage  in  foreign 
trade,  but  also  at  home  —  each  of  us  is  seeking  it 
against  each  other.  It  is  as  Mr.  Farmer  says: 
"Each  class  of  people  organizes  to  benefit  itself, 
irrespective  of  all  other  classes."  If  all  classes 
organized  and  secured  the  same  proportionate  raise 
of  prices  no  one  would  profit  thereby.  Let  us  be 
thankful  that  Mr.  Farmer  is  such  a  good-natured 
fellow,  permitting  the  organization  of  everything 
and  everybody  against  him. 

But  if  Mr.  Farmer  is  an  angel  from  one  stand- 
point, from  another  he  is  not.  He  seeks  the  most 
advantageous  land,  near  the  cities,  near  creeks  and 
rivers,  in  valleys,  near  the  railroads,  etc.,  in  short. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  i8i 

the  advantage  of  good  land  over  poor  lar;d.  In- 
deed, the  success  of  the  American  farmer  is  based 
on  the  favorable  comparison  of  his  lands,  in  quality 
and  quantity,  with  foreign  farms.  When  our  farm- 
land finally  becomes  as  dear  as  foreign  farms,  it 
will  mean  good-bye  to  the  exports  of  agricultural 
products,  and  hence  of  manufactured  products, 
until  we  are  ready  to  compete  on  a  level,  that  is, 
earn  sales  through  merit,  rather  than  through  sub- 
sidy. 

But  if  Mr.  Farmer  is  correct  in  the  assumption 
that  all  trade  is  based  on  selfishness,  in  which  he  is 
ably  seconded  by  Mr.  Banker,  and  opposed  by  Mr. 
Socialist,  one  thing  we  may  all  agree  upon:  Its 
condition  is  the  state  of  peace,  and  its  results  altru- 
istic. Were  it  not  for  the  trade  ideal,  Europe 
would  constantly  be  embroiled  in  turmoil;  France 
and  Germany  ere  this  would  have  been  at  each 
other's  throat.  Were  it  not  for  business,  the  eccen- 
tricities of  Kings,  the  caprice  of  Queens,  the  itch 
for  glory  and  pride  of  monarchs  would  more  fre- 
quently seek  the  historical  forms  of  expression. 
The  desire  to  extend  domain,  to  bequeath  the  title 
of  "Great,"  and  to  stand  in  marble,  giant  size,  in  a 
public  garden,  with  a  St.  George  spear  and  gigan- 


182  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

tic  sword,  is  not  yet  entirely  dispelled.  But  a  $100,- 
000,000  customer  in  these  days  is  not  to  be  sneezed 
at;  an  offense  to  such  a  customer  becomes  a  national 
calamity;  his  displeasure  may  be  incurred  only 
when  other  customers  with  a  still  fuller  purse  stand 
ready  to  take  his  place. 

Governments  may  ruthlessly,  recklessly,  blind- 
ly waste  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  for  a  navy; 
but  the  people  of  no  first-class  commercial  power 
will  ever  again  consent  to  the  waging  of  war; 
wherever  they  have  the  forms  and  opportunity  of 
free  expression,  perpetual  peace  is  assured.  Self- 
ishness is  the  purpose  of  trade,  peace  its  condition, 
and  love  its  end.  The  firing  of  a  gun  usually  car- 
ries a  loss  solely  to  the  enemy;  not  so  in  the  peace- 
able war  of  trade.  There  every  gun  is  aimed  at 
the  gunner. 

Among  some  reputed  statesmen  the  notion  still 
prevails  that  billion  dollar  navies  must  be  main- 
tained to  guarantee  peace  and  tranquillity,  the  nec- 
essary conditions  of  commerce  —  in  other  words,  to 
protect  its  citizens  on  the  highways  of  international 
trade  as  against  the  grand  larceny  of  other  nations. 
This  is  really  laughable.  Where's  the  pirate?  Is 
it  France?     Or  Germany?     Or  England?     Is  it 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  183 

Russia  or  Japan  or  China?  Have  they  not  each 
and  every  'one,  the  same  commercial  interests? 
And  as  to  the  fishing  pirates  off  the  coast  of 
Tangiers,  would  they  not  frighten  at  the  sight  of  a 
modern  trading  greyhound?  Only  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  belief  that  trade  is  based  on  force,  or 
bullying  power,  will  fully  explain  this  ruthless 
extravagance  and  waste  of  money  —  the  mushroom 
ideal  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  19th  century. 

These  navies  are  but  the  mob  in  front  of  a  busy 
store  blocking  the  passage  of  real  customers.  They 
intimidate  foreign  trade  and  investment;  they're 
an  eyesore  to  honest  international  good-fellowship, 
a  source  of  irritation,  and  threat  of  war.  Of  course, 
to  perpetuate  the  serfdom  already  imposed  on 
weak,  subject  people  they  must  be  maintained.  As 
well,  however,  might  a  merchant  hire  a  policeman 
to  keep  his  best  customers  away  from  his  front  door 
as  to  build  a  navy  for  the  protection  of  legitimate 
trade.  International  trade  never  will  develop  to  its 
utmost  so  long  as  enterprising  merchants  must  look 
into  the  barrel-hole  of  threatening  foreign  guns. 


And  so,  gentlemen,  I  have  trodden  the  path  that 
you  respectively  have  taken.  I  have  generally  at- 
tempted to  advance  a  single  step  beyond  you,  and 


184  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

to  admonish  you  of  the  pitfalls  ahead.  I  have  tried 
to  show  you  that  there  is  decay  in  plenty,  and 
wealth  in  poverty;  that  socialism  accompanies  indi- 
vidualism; that  trade  is  based  on  love  as  well  as  on 
selfishness;  that  all  conduct  contains  within  itself 
the  germs  of  both  egoism  and  altruism;  that  love 
lingers  behind  hate,  and  that  hate  is  the  prompting 
of  love ;  that  every  action  is  a  virtue  or  vice  accord- 
ingly as  it  is  measured  by  the  affirmation  or  nega- 
tion, or  other  dualities  of  life:  duty  or  inclination, 
conventionality  or  originality,  youth  or  age,  egoism 
or  altruism,  subjectivity  or  objectivity,  voluntarism 
or  involuntarism,  etc.  I  have  tried  to  show  that 
pessimism  from  one  standpoint  is  optimism  from 
another;  that  too  much  centralization  of  govern- 
ment is  as  objectionable  as  too  much  decentraliza- 
tion; that  extreme  socialism  and  extreme  individ- 
ualism are  each  to  be  avoided.  But  exactly  where 
between  these  two  extremes  is  the  Golden  Mean,  I 
cannot  tell  you;  nor  can  any  other  living  soul  do 
so;  nor  has  anyone  ever  attempted  it  in  definite, 
concise  terms. 

Even  the  Golden  Mean,  instead  of  being  immu- 
table, is  as  uncertain,  elusive,  and  elastic  as  ex- 
treme idealism.  The  conflict  in  philosophic  thought 
between  their  merits  has  occupied  the  best  minds 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  185 

of  all  ages;  yet  we  have  progressed  no  farther  than 
did  the  Ancients.  The  Golden  Mean,  or  realism, 
is  understood  only  in  terms  of  idealism;  and  the 
latter,  idealism,  must  be  expressed  and  interpreted 
in  terms  of  reality  — it  is  intelligible  only  in  cur- 
rent terms,  borrowed  from  the  visible  processes  of 
nature,  of  man,  of  animal  and  inorganic  forms. 
Every  word  in  the  English  language  is  borrowed 
from  a  condition  or  process  of  nature.  Swedenborg 
expresses  the  idea  thus:  "There  is  nothing  exist- 
ing in  human  thought  even  though  relating  to  the 
most  mysterious  trust  of  faith,  but  has  combined 
with  it  a  natural  and  sensuous  image."  We  can- 
not improve  on  the  senses;  we  may  for  a  moment 
attempt  to  soar  in  flights  of  fancy  —  only  for  a 
moment,  then  to  return  with  increased  velocity  to 
mother-nature.  She  not  only  conditions  our  exist- 
ence, she  permeates  our  language;  she  is  our  lan- 
guage. Our  ideals  are  expressed  in  her  terms.  We 
cannot  rise  above  her  in  this  life.  "Our  words  and 
thoughts,"  says  Emerson,  "are  formed  by  nature's 
help.  Every  noun  is  an  image."  And  Jean  Paul 
affirms  the  same  idea  when  he  says  that  "every 
word  is  a  faded  metaphor."  Shall  we  wonder  that 
the  Chinese  worship  Nature  in  human  conduct, 


1 86  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

that  is,  conventionality;  that  the  Hindoos  impute 
life  to  her;  that  the  Egyptians  adored  her  power, 
that  the  Greeks  and  Romans  personified  her  pro- 
cesses; and  that  the  Teutons  rendered  homage  to 
the  spirits  domiciled  within  her  realm?  That 
even  Christians  find  an  impersonal  God  or  spirit- 
ual power,  "in  all,  through  all,  above  all"? 

And  are  not  all  ideas  of  justice  likewise  predi- 
cated on  nature?  The  Christian  systems  of  judi- 
cature are  based  on  the  Roman  law ;  and  the  Roman 
law,  both  civil  and  moral,  were  based  on  nature. 
And  if,  perchance,  someone  tells  you  that  the  law 
of  some  countries  in  Europe  or  America  is  based, 
or  has  been  reared,  on  "reason,"  question  him  a 
little  further,  and  see  whether  he  mean  anything 
else  than  the  revealed  processes  of  nature.  When- 
ever in  past  history  Kings  or  Emperors  have  as- 
signed ground  for  their  action,  it  was  nature,  natur- 
al reason,  humanity,  equity  or  common  sense  — 
all,  says  Brice,  the  learned  political  writer,  mean 
the  same  thing,  and  are  convertible  terms  —  the 
law  of  nature.  And  nature  speaks  in  as  many 
terms  as  there  are  things,  and  with  as  many  voices 
as  there  are  persons,  with  apparent  cross  purposes 
and  diversifying  ends. 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  187 

The  same  doubt  and  uncertainty  arises  in  seeking 
a  standard  for  the  truths  in  ethics.  The  common- 
place, conventional,  or  natural  moulds  of  thought, 
current  in  ancient  days,  still  rule  supreme.  So  far 
as  ethics  has  attempted  to  provide  a  norm  for  indi- 
vidual action,  equally  applicable  to  all,  it  has  failed 
ingloriously.  No  rule  has  ever  been  postulated,  to 
the  detailed  application  of  which  any  two  ethical 
writers  would  agree.  The  science  is  upon  no 
higher  plane  than  in  the  days  of  Aristotle.  None 
of  its  truths  are  more  firmly  established;  if  any- 
thing, they  are  more  questioned.  The  contest  be- 
tween the  moral  worth  of  good  ivill  on  the  one  hand 
with  the  beneficial  effects  on  the  other  will  ever  be 
the  juggling  feats  of  strong,  acrobatic,  ethical 
minds,  but  the  winner  can  never  be  finally  and 
definitely  settled  upon. 

In  aesthetics  the  good,  the  beautiful,  and  the  true 
can  be  found  neither  solely  through  the  senses,  nor 
through  reason ;  founded  solely  on  the  senses,  the 
science,  if  such  it  may  be  denominated,  becomes 
immoral;  based  solely  upon  reason,  it  becomes 
unnatural,  unreal. 

In  religion,  where  between  doubt  and  dogma 
shall  man  take  a  stand?     Both  conduce  to  its  de- 


1 88  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

velopment  and  vigor;  the  lack  of  either  emascu- 
lates its  influence  and  hastens  its  end.  Some  seek 
escape  by  taking  a  middle  course,  they  walk  with  a 
little  dogma  in  one  hand  and  a  little  doubt  in  the 
other.  They  cling  to  that  mightily  prized  Roman, 
middle-of-the-road  virtue,  namely,  toleration,  as 
the  only  life-raft  in  the  shipwreck  of  dogma  on 
the  sea  of  doubt.  Toleration  enjoyed  in  Roman 
ethics  and  religion,  approximately,  the  conception 
which  our  word  "love"  occupies  in  ours ;  by  it  they 
meant,  more  particularly,  breadth  of  view  and 
generosity  of  mind,  which  in  practice  we  can  read- 
ily see  might  operate  to  effect  the  same  conduct 
as  our  "love."  However,  as  usual,  virtues  pos- 
sessed in  an  inordinate  degree,  lose  their  color  and 
brilliancy.  As  too  much  coal,  or  too  little,  puts  out 
the  fire,  so  too  much  or  too  little  toleration  creates 
doubt  and  despair  in  all  fields  of  inquiry.  The 
contention,  for  example,  that  all  religions  are  good, 
or  equal  each  other  in  value,  depreciates  all;  they 
lose  their  vital  force,  their  exclusiveness,  their 
superiority,  their  life.  The  X-Ray  of  ignorance 
is  more  intense  and  powerful  than  the  manifold 
radiations  of  wisdom.  Supreme  toleration  smoth- 
ers all  incentive  to  exemplary  conduct.     Dogma  in 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  189 

religion,  and  absoluteness  in  morals,  are  neces- 
sary to  give  life  and  vitality  to  them.  It  was 
undoubtedly  this  knowledge,  by  the  Italian  states- 
men and  clergy  of  the  middle  ages,  of  the  former 
decomposition  of  Grecian  and  Roman  religions, 
morals,  and  philosophy  through  Sophistic  disbe- 
lief in  an  absolute  norm  or  rule  of  action  which 
inspired  the  resolute  purpose  of  crushing  in  the 
bud  every  encroachment  on  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity and  every  attempt  at  private  interpretation  of 
religious  doctrines.  This  explains,  too,  undoubt- 
edly, the  fury  of  the  Spanish  inquisition,  the  vir- 
tue of  frequent  political  murders  in  more  recent 
times,  and  the  outward  support  of  all  Kings  and 
Queens  today,  in  all  monarchical  countries,  of  the 
cause  of  religion.  They  believe  that  whatever 
affects  religion,  affects  morals;  and  that  whatever 
affects  morals,  affects  the  social  contract;  and  that 
whatever  affects  that,  afifects  the  public  welfare, 
and  endangers  their  position  and  power. 

Toleration,  or  enlightenment,  therefore  is  a 
dubious  virtue,  and  offers  us  no  escape  in  the  con- 
flict between  doubt  and  dogma.  It  elevates  us  no 
higher  than  the  Immutable  Mean  —  conventional- 
ism of  the  present,  or  the  sanctification  of  the  past, 
or  naturalism — sublimates  the  Chinese.  The  ideal- 


190  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ism  of  the  Occidentals  fructifies  morality  no  more 
than  the  naturalism  of  the  Oriental,  because  as 
already  explained  they  are  expressed  in  terms  of 
each  other. 

So,  it  seems,  in  these  recited  fields  of  learning  — 
universal  judgments  being  objectionable,  and  absol- 
ute truth  unattainable  —  that  truth  can  only  be 
individualistic  and  relative.  None  of  us  bears  a 
letter  of  authority  from  Him,  certifying  to  our 
divine  nature,  or  to  the  infallibility  of  our  reason, 
or  to  the  accurateness  of  our  vision.  Either  no 
person  on  this  earth  is  divine,  or,  all  are;  conse- 
quently, no  one  possesses  the  truth,  or  all  do.  But 
as  mankind  is,  and  forever  must  remain,  vain  and 
conceited,  it  is  better  to  adopt  the  latter  alternative. 
Accordingly,  we  must  say  that  as  many  angles  of 
truth  exist  as  there  are  individuals. 

As  to  the  profoundness  of  human  knowledge  we 
can  only  predicate  this:  as  we  attempt  to  probe  into 
nature's  mysteries,  we  get  lost  in  the  gloom.  The 
deeper  we  go,  the  narrower  we  get;  the  wider  we 
dig,  the  shallower  the  hole.  How  deep  our  probe 
and  wide  our  scope  should  be,  is  beyond  the  capac- 
ity of  man  to  decide.  With  every  prick  under 
the  surface,  new  worlds  of  complexities  rush  forth ; 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  191 

new  relationships  rush  hither  and  thither,  inter- 
lacing, intertwining,  counteracting,  until  the  mind 
is  forced  to  cease  its  useless  inquiry,  exhausted  from 
utter  bewilderment  and  sheer  desperation. 

In  the  science  of  medicine,  for  example,  special- 
ists are  increasing  annually  in  numbers;  they  seek 
insular,  unrelated  truth;  and,  consequently,  the 
more  expert  they  become  in  their  special  field,  the 
less  efficient  are  they  as  general  advisers.  Hence 
we  can  readily  conceive  their  knowledge  extended 
to  the  point  of  barrenness  and  impotency.  In  the 
simplest  matters  of  the  greatest  importance  and 
most  general  interest  the  divergence  of  opinion 
is  becoming  wider  and  wider.  For  example,  the 
wildest  disagreement  prevails  as  to  whether  alco- 
hol in  one  form  or  another  be  injurious ;  or  whether 
water  should  be  drunk  with,  or  before,  or  after 
meals;  or  whether  our  dinner  should  be  at  12  or  6 
o'clock;  or  whether  food  taken  before  retirement 
conduce  to  sleep;  or  whether  cold  baths  be  more 
efficacious  than  hot  ones;  or  whether  inclination 
or  reason  be  the  best  guide  to  health;  or  whether 
cotton  or  woolen  underwear  conduce  best  to  com- 
fort and  longevity. 

In  the  industrial  life  we  notice  the  same  man- 


192  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ifestations:  men  become  specialized  to  the  point 
of  utter  incapacity  for  any  other  labor.  The  man 
who  makes  part  of  an  engine  very  often  does  not 
know  its  purpose  and  could  not  construct  the  whole. 

Likewise,  in  the  science  of  political  economy, 
the  author  of  a  complete  treatise  on  the  subject 
must  be  a  ver\^  shallow  man.  Every  single  branch 
in  this  science  has  been  discussed  at  such  length, 
and  with  so  muqh  learning  that  the  mastery  of  the 
writings  and  treatises  in  a  single  branch  would 
require  a  life-time.  Indeed,  it  is  questionable 
whether  we  have  lifted  our  knowledge  of  political 
economy  to  the  dignity  of  a  science.  Not  a  single 
axiom  is  established  and  generally  accepted.  The 
theory  of  rent,  the  theory  of  value,  the  theory  of 
wages,  of  price,  of  wealth,  of  money,  of  capital  are 
becoming  more  and  more  debatable  and  uncertain 
with  the  increase  in  the  number  of  students.  Such 
simple  questions  as :  Is  thrift  commendable?  Or, 
should  we  explain  child  labor  by  reason  of  added 
opportunity,  or  because  of  increased  necessity?  are 
and  always  have  been  unsatisfactorily  and  equiv- 
ocally answered. 

Only  as  \Nt  eliminate  past  learning,  and  mon- 
umentalize our  own,  is  there  room  for  our  wisdom. 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  193 

The  deeper  we  pry  into  the  entrails  of  nature  the 
more  mysterious  are  the  results;  because,  the  more 
we  follow  her  in  her  processes  the  less  do  we  observe 
her  relativity.  The  more  we  learn  by  cold  objec- 
tivity, the  less  w^e  must  know  of  the  warm  foun- 
tain i,pring  of  life,  or  subjectivity.  All  of  the 
humanistic  sciences  treat  men  as  things,  coldly, 
unfeelingly,  objectively.  Perhaps  it  is  necessary 
to  do  so  in  order  to  acquire  general  deductions; 
but  nevertheless  just  therein  is  the  parasite  eating 
at  the  vitals  of  every  law  —  it  renders  these  sciences 
empty,  impotent,  stultifying.  So  Emerson  says: 
"Science  was  false  by  being  unpoetical.  It  as- 
sumed to  explain  a  reptile  or  a  mollusc,  and  iso- 
lated it  —  which  is  hunting  for  life  in  graveyards. 
Reptile  or  mollusc  or  man  or  angel  only  exists  in 
system,  in  relition." 

Furthermore,  as  sciences  depend  on  the  use  of 
our  senses  for  their  inductions  there  never  can  be 
much  advancement  because  added  thought  will 
always  diversify  opinion.  Old,  established,  and 
sanctified  laws  in  every  physical  science  are  daily 
suffering  changes  and  deterioration;  the  wear  and 
tear  of  the  old  is  as  rapid  as  the  growth  of  the  new. 
More  truths  are  rediscovered  and  likewise  more 

13 


194  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

exceptions.  Sciences,  philosophies,  and  theologies 
come  and  go,  if  our  horizon  be  but  wide  enough 
and  our  telescope  big  enough.  "The  Patent  Office 
Commission,"  says  Emerson,  "knows  that  all  ma- 
chines in  use  have  been  invented  over  and  over; 
that  the  mariner's  compass,  the  boat,  the  pendu- 
lum, glass,  movable  types,  the  railway,  power 
loom,  etc.,  have  been  many  times  found  and  lost 
from  Egypt,  China  and  Pompeii  down;  and  if  we 
have  arts  which  Rome  wanted,  so  had  Rome  arts 
which  we  have  lost." 

I  look  at  another  side  of  this  question:  How 
may  we  pass  judgment  upon  the  question  of  the 
retirement  of  Rockefeller,  unless  we  can  correctly 
judge  of  the  value  of  his  accumulation?  And  how 
can  we  properly  estimate  that,  unless  we  know  to 
what  purpose  his  wealth  may  be  devoted  during 
the  remainder  of  his  life,  or  even  after  his  death? 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  he  should  use  his  wealth 
hereafter  in  life,  or  by  will  after  his  decease,  for 
the  socialization  of  the  world,  as  he  has  spent  his 
energies  for  its  individualization.  Must  that  not 
alter  our  estimate?  If  any  doubt  arises  as  to  the 
use  he  may  make  of  his  wealth  in  the  future,  must 
that  not  afifect  our  attitude  toward  this  question? 


A 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  195 

In  other  words,  the  question  cannot  be  decided 
until  his  death  or  perhaps  after. 

But  I  am  sworn  to  honestly  and  truly  try  the 
defendant.  I  confess,  this  confusing  uncertainty 
of  knowledge  is  not  very  conducive  to  a  firm  deci- 
sion. The  French  have  a  saying,  "Tout  compren- 
dre,  est  tout  pardoner."  And  yet  I  must  take  a 
positive  stand.  I  must  vote.  Yes  or  No.  I  still 
have  a  few  moments  before  the  taking  of  the  vote, 
during  which  I  shall  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  con- 
clusion. 


"It  is  not  the  truth  of  which  any 
one  is,  or  assumes  himself  to  be 
possessed,  that  makes  the  worth  of 
a  man,  but  the  upright  endeavor  he 
has  made  to  arrive  at  truth ;  for  not 
by  the  possession,  but  by  the  inves- 
tigation, of  truth  are  the  powers 
expanded,  wherein  alone  is  ever 
growing  perfection." — Lessing. 


The  President: — 

I  believe  all  have  now  had  the  floor;  are  there 
any  further  remarks? 

*'We  live  more  by  example  than 
reason." — Latin  Proverb. 

A   MEMBER 

Mr.  Chairman : — 

I  wish,  in  but  a  few  words,  to  supplement  the 
learned  remarks  of  the  able  gentleman  w^ho  has  just 
finished.  Indeed,  I  may  say  that  sincerity,  earnest- 
ness, and  ability  have  characterized  the  remarks  of 
each  of  you,  not  excepting  Mr.  Tramp.  And  I 
realize  that  each  of  3^ou  expresses  part  of  the  truth. 
It  is  only  with  some  of  the  ideas  of  Mr.  Philoso- 
pher that  I  now  wish  to  find  fault.  Not  that  he 
has  not  digested  this  subject  wisely  and  fundamen- 
tally, but,  like  all  philosophers,  when  he  cannot  find 
one  efficient  cause,  he  condemns  all.     He  has  be- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  197 

come  so  broad  that  he  fails  to  see  the  point.  He 
affirms  both  the  affirmative  and  the  negative  of 
every  proposition.  Of  what  value  can  such  learn- 
ing be,  however  well  grounded,  however  deep? 
Toleration  begets  indifference;  wisdom  breeds  hes- 
itation. Adopting  his  profound  generalizing  man- 
ner, I  might  say  that  too  much  study  causes  a  nar- 
rowness of  vision,  a  sterilization  of  mind,  an  effem- 
ination  of  body,  and  a  paralysis  of  action.  He  can- 
not see  the  trees  for  woods.  From  his  lofty  height 
he  sees  not  a  house  or  a  street,  but  a  village;  but  in 
this  village  are  bleeding  hearts  and  wounded  souls, 
the  victims  of  the  more  selfish,  the  vain,  the  proud, 
the  strong,  the  indifferent. 

"The  doctrine  of  equality,"  he  says,  "is  bosh." 
"It  never  can  be,  it  never  was,  it  never  will  be,  it 
never  should  be  —  equality  is  death,"  etc.,  he  says. 

Mr.  Philosopher  is  right;  it  never  was,  can,  or 
will  be;  man's  pride,  shallowness,  ignorance,  ego- 
ism, selfishness,  will  take  care  of  that.  These  self- 
ish qualities  need  not,  however,  be  idealized. 
They  never  were,  will  be  or  should  be  virtues. 
They  will  forever  thrive  plentifully,  in  spite  of  all 
the  preaching  and  practicing  of  equality.  With 
this  fundamental  truth  man  may  commence  oper- 


198  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

ations.  Their  continuance  is  the  basis  of  all  ideal- 
ism —  yes,  it  is  the  selfish  qualities  which  condition 
and  necessitate  the  ideal  of  humility  and  toleration 
and  love.  They  do  not  destroy  the  ideal,  they 
create  it.  Without  selfishness  there  would  be  no 
unselfishness;  without  immorality,  no  morality. 
Every  virtue  would  fly  from  its  orbit  did  not  the 
vices  give  it  centrifugal  and  centripetal  force. 

So  I  advocate  the  equality  of  man,  not  because 
it  will  ever  be  realized,  but  in  order  that  this  ever- 
lasting blessing  may  ripen  into  a  sweeter  and  more 
nutritious  fruit  —  that  the  rose  may  not  wither  in 
the  bud  for  want  of  rain  and  sunshine.  And  to 
secure  the  equality  of  man  I  advocate  the  equality 
of  opportunity  —  conditions  that  will  the  more 
freely  enable  him  to  work  out  his  own  destiny, 
unhampered  and  unincumbered  by  inherited  cus- 
tom, debt  or  institution.  No  privilege  of  individ- 
ual or  corporation,  state  or  nation,  should  be  his 
burden;  no  debt  of  ancestry  should  be  his  obliga- 
tion. No  institution  of  monopoly,  secret  or  pub- 
lic, partial  or  complete,  local  or  national,  should 
fasten  its  tenacles  in  the  womb  of  his  birth.  The 
equality  of  man  is,  indeed,  a  political  slogan;  yet  it 
is  expressed  in  the  Golden  Rule,  which  appears  in 


I 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  199 

every  theology  —  the  basic  chord  of  all  religious 
harmony.  It  must  forever  be  the  key-note  of  every 
system  of  ethics;  otherwise,  the  science  is  subver- 
sive of  its  very  purpose. 

It  requires  no  profound  wisdom  to  assert  that 
conflict  will  ever  reign  concerning  the  merits  of 
individualism  and  collectivism,  anarchy  and  social- 
ism, democracy  and  imperialism,  love  and  hate, 
egoism  and  altruism.  Indeed,  both  egotistical  and 
sympathetic  impulses  permeate  every  act,  individ- 
ualistic or  social,  political  or  economic,  religious  or 
secular.  No  exclusively  selfish  or  unselfish  act  or 
life  ever  has  existed.  (Even  Jesus  did  not  practice 
love  when  he  chased  the  money-lenders  out  of  the 
temple.  The  practice  of  pure  love  would  have 
condoned  the  ofifense.  Likewise  did  he  forget  him- 
self in  his  denunciation  of  the  Pharisees,  the  most 
popular  sect  of  the  day,  when  he  characterized 
them  as  hypocrites  and  whited  sepulchres  and 
denounced  them  as  the  offspring  of  vipers  and  ser- 
pents, less  qualified  for  admission  to  heaven  than 
publicans  and  harlots.  In  his  calmer  moments 
Jesus  would  not  have  imputed  to  an  all-loving 
Father  the  offense  of  reprehensible  creation;  nor 
would    he   have    forgotten    his   own    admonition : 


200 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 


"Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged."  For  Christ 
knew  that  the  Pharisees  were  God's  creatures  and 
served  some  good  purpose.  Christianity  never 
would  have  been  evolved  nor  have  seen  the  light  of 
day  but  for  these  same  Pharisees.)  Now  the  one 
set  of  feelings  predominate;  now  the  other;  the 
norm  of  excellent  conduct  will  ever  sway  backward 
and  forward  with  the  lapse  of  time.  But,  shall  we 
therefore  fold  our  hands  and  submit  to  the  irony 
of  fate?  These  vacillations  of  the  mental  process 
are  but  the  gymnastic  feats  of  physical  life;  they 
import  life,  change.  In  the  waiting-room  of  uncer- 
tainty and  inactivity  is  never  given  the  signal  for 
the  departure  of  the  train  of  progress.  The  scin- 
tillation of  mind  is  but  the  barometer  indicating 
our  activity,  endeavor,  strife. 

No  panacea  exists,  yet  we  and  each  of  us  are 
instrumental  in  the  creation  of  conditions  of  health 
or  disease  in  all  spheres  of  human  conduct. 

Man  is  mortal.  His  ideals  will  never  be  fully 
realized.  But  yet  our  sympathies,  our  labors,  our 
hearts,  our  minds  are  always  enlisted  either  in  fur- 
thering the  equality,  nobility,  and  divinity  of  man, 
or  in  broadening  the  gulf  of  inequality.  Their 
relationship  is  never  stationary.     The  conditions  of 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  201 

inequality  may  be  ameliorated;  or  they  may  be 
intensified  and  fortified.  The  only  question  here 
is,  what  position  shall  we  assume?  Which  class 
shall  we  foster?  In  what  direction  shall  we  throw 
our  influence?  Or,  shall  we  be  a  reed  to  be  blown 
by  the  wind?  Accordingly  as  this  underlying 
motive  impels  us  in  the  one  direction  or  the  other, 
would  I  evaluate  the  arguments  here  presented. 
The  doctrine  of  universal  brotherhood,  whether 
taught  in  religion  or  art,  in  ethics  or  politics, 
whether  presented  by  a  socialist  or  anarchist,  by 
Mr.  Tramp  or  Mr.  Banker,  is  always  one  and  the 
same  universal  pole-star,  guiding  the  destinies  of 
all  mankind  all  over  the  world.  And  whether  the 
resultant  efifect  of  our  conduct,  or  the  benevolence 
of  our  inclinations,  be  the  highest  good,  is  irrele- 
vant and  immaterial.  In  tracing  the  fountain-head 
of  all  these  gushing  and  ever-flowing  springs  of 
virtuous  action  we  find  that  all  emanate  from  the 
same  source,  they  flow  in  the  same  direction,  and 
they  all  finally  become  merged  in  the  grandest 
of  Mississippis  —  Loving  Life  —  they,  each  and 
all,  land  us  on  the  boundless  shores  of  rest,  peace, 
and  contentment. 

Accordingly,  our  Mr.  Landlord,  in  demanding 


202  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 

a  cessation  of  vice,  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the 
surrender  of  his  privilege,  is  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of 
progress.  Progress  is  not  furthered  by  delay  and 
procrastination,  nor  by  the  vain  hope  of  our  neigh- 
bor's timely  virtue;  but  through  our  example,  by 
our  showing  the  way.  No  nation  exists  which 
would  not  break  the  ranks  of  her  army,  and  dis- 
mantle her  ironclads,  if  all  others  had  previously 
adopted  such  policy.  Appraisers  of  merchandise 
and  snifflers  of  trunks  at  seaports,  would  lose  their 
jobs  in  America,  if  all  Europe  had  open  ports.  No 
man  would  practice  vice,  if  all  others  were  vir- 
tuous. Men  will  never  live  perpetually,  and  yet 
the  science  of  medicine  is  multiplying  its  devotees. 
The  physical  body  will  never  be  all-powerful,  and 
yet  we  practice  physical  culture.  Intemperance 
has  reigned  in  all  ages,  in  every  land,  and  among 
all  people;  but  just  there,  among  them,  we  also  find 
the  apotheosis  of  temperance. 

Mr.  Philosopher  and  Mr.  Landlord  are  right; 
but  they  need  advance  but  one  more  step— only  one 
—  toward  the  humble  and  oppressed,  toward  the 
shackled  and  fettered,  the  unfree  and  unborn. 
That  IS  the  fundamental  virtue,  the  measure  of  all 
others.     They  need  but  give  battle  to  the  hydra- 


Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury  203 

headed  monster,  inequality,  whenever  and  where- 
ever  he  shows  his  fangs;  they  will  find  him  in  all 
walks  of  life,  secular  and  religious,  public  and  pri- 
vate, in  mansion  and  in  hovel ;  they  will  find  him 
every  hour  of  the  day  and  every  day  of  the  week 
and  every  week  of  the  year  from  now  until  eternity. 
Is  Rockefeller  giving  him  battle?  Or  is  he  feed- 
ing him?  Accordingly  as  you  answer  this  ques- 
tion —  and  it  seems  to  me  the  answer  is  perfectly 
plain  —  must  you  vote  here  in  this  matter. 

"E  Pluribus  Unum." 


204  Rockefeller  Before  a  Jury 


Thereupon  the  jury  commenced  balloting.  The 
result  of  the  first  ballet  was  7^  nays,  4^  yeas. 
After  taking  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  ballots,  the 
vote  was  still  7^  nays,  4I/2  yeas,  which  result  con- 
tinued until  the  two  hundredth  ballot.  In  discus- 
sing the  proceedings  further,  the  fact  developed 
that  Mr.  Philosopher  was  casting  a  half  vote  both 
affirmatively  and  negatively,  his  explanation  being 
merely  that  both  sides  were  right.  Whereupon,  on 
motion,  the  jury  decided  to  return  and  report  their 
disagreement  to  the  court,  which  accordingly  was 
done.  The  jury  thereupon  was  discharged,  and  a 
new  jury  immediately  impanelled  and  sworn.  A 
record  of  their  proceedings  will  be  found  on 
another  page. 


INDEX 


Abnegation,    136,    147. 

Art,    its    former    state,     69 ;     in 

Germany,    70 ;    its   support   by 

Royalty.    83  ;    in   Europe,    174 ; 

its  meaning,   175  ;   democratic, 

84,    175. 
Artist's  Speech,    69. 


Balance  of  Trade,   158. 
Banker's    Speech,    13. 
Benefactions,    20. 
Bounties    for   farmers,    129. 


Capital    Stock   of    trusts,    75. 

Captains  of  industry,  princes  of 
peace,   22  ;   our  emperors,    88. 

Centralization  of  government, 
87,  157. 

Charters,  former  treatment  of, 
39. 

Christianity,  136  ;  its  proper  in- 
terpretation,  137,   147. 

Civilization,  its  artificiality,  33  ; 
its  progress,  51,  85  ;  an  indict- 
ment against,  92 ;  Its  mean- 
ing,  108. 

Competition,  the  necessity  of, 
79,  89  ;  its  consequences,  108 ; 
a  virtue  and  a  vice,   152. 

Concentration,   our  age   is,    18. 

Confidence,  the  basis  of  busi- 
ness, 15.  , 

Constitution,    our,    63. 

Consumption,  better  than  pro- 
duction,   25,    104,    160. 

Country,  our,  59 ;  intellectually, 
59 ;  politically,  60 ;  socially, 
6 1  ;  industrially,  63 ;  its  fu- 
ture, 64  ;  what  is,  82. 

Crime  increasing,   95. 

D 
Democrat's   Speech.    72. 
Deposits,  bank,   in  U.   S..  17. 


E 

Economies,  their  meaning,  129. 

Education,  our,  its  sterility,  33  ; 
our  high  standard,  59  ;  in  Eng- 
land,   48. 

Employers,  number  of,  decreas- 
ing,   40,    93. 

Employers,  number  of,  increas- 
ing 93. 

Employment,  of  women,  96 ;  of 
infants,    97. 

Endowments,   20. 

Equality,  the  laborer's  battle, 
49;  formerly  taught,  154;  not 
desirable,  154;  the  parent  vir- 
tue,   197. 

Evolution  of  the  corporation,  39. 

Exports,    123,    128. 

Exports  and  imports,  124,  158, 
179. 

F 

Families,  large,  a  virtue,  171. 

Farms,  size  of,  increasing,  42 ; 
abandoned,    125. 

Farmer's    condition,    126. 

Farmer's   Speech,    120. 

Farming,  our  main  industry,  128. 

Freedom,  political,  102 ;  econ- 
omic,   103. 

G 
Golden  Mean,  184. 

H 
Haste  to  get  rich,  murder,  36. 
Healthy    thought,    Its    condition, 
57. 


Ideal,    American,    13;    Rockefel- 
ler's,  13. 
Immigration,  value  of,   19,  62. 
Imporialism,    105,    160. 
Individualism,    149. 
Inequality,  an  ideal,   18. 
Infant    employment,    97. 


206 


Index 


K 
Knowledge,    its   limits,    190 ;    its 
barrenness,  33. 


Labor,  its  former  condition,  45; 
in  England,  46;  in  France, 
47 ;  in  Germany,  48 ;  its  un- 
employment, 93. 

Labor  organizations,  their  ben- 
efits,   52. 

Labor  unions,  trusts,  53  ;  based 
on  selfishness,   130. 

Laborer's    Speech,    45. 

Landlord's    Speech,    113. 

Land  monopoly,  its  effect,  94, 
102,  114;  its  abolishment,  118. 

Land  owners,  number  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 92 ;  in  Scotland,  92 ;  in 
Germany,  92  ;  in  U.  S.,   94. 

Land  tenure,  our,  the  cause  of 
trusts,   76. 

Law   makes  wealth,    79,    102. 

Life,  present,  its  cheapness,  132  ; 
future,   148. 

Love,  135  ;  in  various  theologies, 
139 ;   in  Judaism,   143. 

M 

Market,  home,   122,   160. 
Marriage  in  U.   S.,   170  ;   its  ties 

looser,   95. 
Middle    class,    disappearing,    43, 

96. 
Millionaires  make  tramps,   28. 
Minister's  Speech,   121. 

N 
Navies,   105,  182. 

O 
Optimi.sm  is  decay,   81,   169. 
Organizations,   effect  of,   122. 


Panics.  66,  128. 
Patriotism,  170. 
Perpetuity    of    land,    titles,    the 

real   basis  of  trusts,    77. 
Pessimism  is  ideal,   81,   169. 
Philosopher's    Speech,    145. 
Poverty,    in  England,    92  ;    in  U. 

S.,    93. 
Prosperity,  the  farmer's,  125  ;  its 

cause,   127  ;   its  effect,  176. 

R 

Religion,   what   is,    137. 
Republican's   Speech,    58. 


Retailer's   Speech,   36. 

Retirement,  consequences  of,  21. 

Riches,  their  meaning,  126. 

Rockefeller,  his  social  services, 
22 ;  his  benefactions,  23 ;  his 
fortune,  others  poverty,  36 ; 
his  services  as  a  trust  organ- 
izer, 55 ;  his  services  as  an 
art  supporter,  70  ;  a  self-made 
man,  178. 

S 

Slavery,   100. 

Socialism,  its  aspirations,  90, 
109 ;  its  meaning,  149 ;  in 
Athens,    150. 

Speech  of  Banker,   13. 

Speech  of  Tramp,   24. 

Speech  of  Laborer,  46. 

Speech  of  Republican,   58. 

Speech  of  Artist,   69. 

Speech    of   Democrat,    72. 

Speech    of   Socialist,    90. 

Speech   of   Landlord,    113. 

Speech   of  Farmer,    120. 

Speech   of  Minister,    131. 

Speech  of   Philosopher,    144. 

Statute  of  Laborers,  46. 


Tariffs,   a   limitation  of,    75. 

Toleration,    189. 

Thrift,  a  vice,   25  ;    148. 

Torture  formerly  practiced,  48. 

Trade,  based  on  selfishness,  122, 
179 ;  based  on  love,  106. 

Tramp's  Speech,  24 ;  his  oppor- 
tunities,  31. 

Trusts,  bigness  of  American,  16, 
41 ;  missions  of  mercy,  16  ;  il- 
legality of,  38;  their  iniquity, 
54 ;  their  benefits,  66 ;  their 
injury,  73  ;  different  kinds  of, 
74  ;  their  capital  stock,  75  ; 
how  to  tax  them,  76;  secret 
of  their  power,  77  ;  eliminate 
panics,   66. 

U 
Unemployment,   93. 

W 

Wealth,  is  power,  14 ;  its  ephe- 
meral aspect,  76 ;  is  merely 
law,  79  ;  in  U.  S.,  17  ;  what  is, 
lOe,  166  ;  private  vs.  social,  76, 
164. 

Wheat   crop,    123. 

Woman  in  industrial  life,  96. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

Thl,  book  1,  DUE  on  .he  lasl  da..  ..amped  below. 


•JAN  0  8 1985 
gtCO  to-'"" 

SIPD  IDURl 


3  1158  00305  4052 


T" 


035  200  3 


